


various tumblr ficlets

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Dark Tower - Stephen King, Lost, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sirens (UK), Supernatural, X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Cats, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Escorts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Alternative Universe - FBI, Amusement Parks, Awkward Kissing, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Clothing Kink, Concerts, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Crossdressing, Dick Pics, F/M, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween, Hipster-ish Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Magic Mirrors, Making Up, Multi, Past Abuse, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Punk Steve Rogers, Purple Wedding, Robb Stark is a Gift, Sibling Love, Spin the Bottle, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trick or Treating, Truth or Dare, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:42:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 66
Words: 53,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of random ficlets I wrote for tumblr prompts - this is going to get updated whenever I take them on there in the future.</p><p>update 25/6/2015: added a bunch of theon/robb ficlets (for the line prompts 'what happened doesn't change anything' and 'don't fucking touch me', plus getting emotional while watching a movie together, making up after a row with sansa's blessing, male models au + male model and photographer au, plus for a meme including different kisses: good morning kiss, awkward kiss, you almost died + war's end kiss, returned from the dead kiss, jealous kiss, last kiss, goodbye kiss), plus various robb-centered canon and not canon ficlets (pre-canon robb & jon spending time together, canon au where robb and bran visit jon at the Wall, robb + sansa modern au fluff, robb + rickon modern au fluff), plus one jon/ygritte (seductive kiss), plus one tyrion/bronn (awkward kissing), one tyrion/bronn/shae ('don't trust me'), plus three jaime/brienne (shy kiss, 'you can trust me', 'shit, are you bleeding?), and an mcu tony/bruce ficlet (ear kissing).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. supernatural; dean/castiel; western attire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Dean still has his sheriff outfit and Cas likes it very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally written months ago for [joyyjpg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyyjpg/works), for the prompt _cowboy hats_ , and it was just after 8x07 aired so that'd be a coda to it.

He had forgotten he kept the hat. 

Or better, he knew he hadn’t  _thrown_  that away, but he had assumed it had burned along with Bobby’s house. He had forgotten that it was in an old duffel that had been in the back of the Impala for that entire time and that Sam hadn’t thrown away during  his stint in Purgatory. And that the coat had been there, too – the sheriff star is still pinned against it.

And now he’s found them both while cleaning out the trunk and the secret compartment under it, and he’s standing in the middle of the parking lot holding the coat in one hand and the hat in the other. He can’t help wishing that things were as easy now as they were back then (and back then, he had been missing the times when they didn’t have Leviathans and mothers of all monsters to deal with), and he stares at the hat for a moment before sighing and moving to put the clothes back where he found them.

“Didn’t you have a blanket, too?”

Dean doesn’t even feel surprised when he turns on his left and finds himself face to face with Cas.

“Weren’t you and Sam being nerds?”

“Yes, but we aren’t reaching any conclusion yet. And there are no more leads to follow. I thought I would… take a break. Is that right?”

“Yeah, just don’t say it as if you’re speaking Chinese for the first time.”

“I actually do speak –”

“Cas, I  _know **.**_  Chill. Anyway, I wasn’t doing much. I’ll just put these away and –”

 “You miss wearing them.”

 Dean stops dead in his tracks, looks back up at Cas. “Sorry?”

“You do. And I’m not reading your mind. It’s… all over you.” Cas reaches out and takes the hat from Dean’s fingers – Dean doesn’t put up a resistance. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed.”

 “I shouldn’t? I’m nostalgic of that time I was playin’ dress-up, Cas. I damn well should.”

“You’re nostalgic of something you  _liked_  being a part of. No, you shouldn’t. If anything, I’m sorry that –” 

“If you’re about to apologize for the umpteenth time, can it. We’re over it.” He isn’t sure he can go _**there**_  again – as far as he’s concerned, there’s been more than enough atoning going on with Cas. Going insane is enough, as far as Dean is concerned. Cas’s eyes go soft for a moment, the way they did when he told Dean that he couldn’t save anyone but he tried, and Dean can’t quite bring himself to move, break the moment and put the coat away.

“I won’t then,” Cas says, and then he takes a better look at the hat in his hands, turning it between his fingers. He’s looking at it as if it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen, and Dean doesn’t get where this is aiming at. 

“You actually  _wanted_  to go back in time to that specific timeframe,” Cas says, as if he’s trying to put together some kind of deduction. Whatever he’s doing, Dean  _ **is**_  feeling like the John Watson of the situation. “Because you like  _ **movies**_  set in that period. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Dean admits. No point in denying it.

“And in those movies, the sheriff was the one who tries to save everyone.”

“… yeah. More or less. When did you become a western expert?”

“I told you, Dean. I  _had_  missed television. May I have the coat?”

Dean shrugs and hands it over. He’s still not getting what Cas is attempting to do. Cas places the hat back in the trunk and then he walks behind Dean and before Dean can ask him what the fuck is going on, Cas has put the coat on him. Then he moves back in front of him, straightens the hems and makes sure that the star isn’t falling off. When he’s apparently satisfied that it’s staying put, he takes the hat again and puts it on Dean’s head after batting away a thin layer of dust, and then pulls it downwards so that the brim is covering half of his forehead.

Dean would really like to  _ **say**_  something, but there’s a lump in his throat and he  _can’t **.**_  Cas’s hands go to the lapels of the coat, moving closer, the brim of the hat pressing against his hair.

“You  _should_  wear these. They suit you.” It’s blatant that Cas isn’t talking about how hot he might look when he plays Clint Eastwood.

“You think so?” Dean’s voice sounds a lot smaller than he’d like.

“I always thought so,” Cas replies, and before Dean knows it the two inches between them are gone, his arms are around Cas’s shoulders again, Cas’s arms are around his waist and they’re kissing as the hat tips slightly to one side, and Cas isn’t staying put like in Purgatory but is pressing up against him and returning the hold, and it’s not rushed but slow and  _ **nice**_  and tentative on both parts, and it feels so good he isn’t sure he’s not dreaming it.

When it’s over, Cas doesn’t pull back all the way – just enough so that Dean can breathe.

“Then I guess you don’t want me to take ‘em off,” Dean says, and at least it’s not as shaky as he had thought it’d be.

“No,” Cas replies, shaking his head. “No, I think you should keep them.”

And before he leans back in for another kiss that is a lot less tentative than the first, he takes care to hold the brim of the hat so that it doesn’t fall off.


	2. supernatural; bobby + dean and cas; cats au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Dean and Cas are cats and Bobby hadn't planned on taking them in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon who asked for an au where they were both cats - I did my best. ;)

Thing is, Bobby Singer’s place was never pet friendly and certainly not  _cat_  friendly, not that he ever planned on taking a cat in. Let alone two.

Except that it’s apparently happened.

Dean was the first - he had found him on his property a few years ago, still a kitten and this close to die drenched in the pouring rain. There wasn’t a mother nearby so Bobby had figured that someone had just left him there to die and - the damn thing was too pitiable to leave there, with his light brown fur and huge green eyes, and so Bobby had brought it in and gave it food. He had thought of bringing it to a shelter the day after, but by the time the evening was over other than food he had given the cat a name, after James Dean, and - well, after his wife died a few months ago he had felt kind of lonely, and so he had said screw it, let’s keep the damn thing. It’s not as if it ever dirtied the floor or attacked his books, and so it had been him and Dean for a few years.

Until Bobby had found  _another_  one on the highway while he went to buy groceries in town. This second cat was older, his fur dark brown and his eyes a striking blue, and he had obviously been left there as well. When Bobby stopped, it had looked at him as if it was begging Bobby to put out of its misery.

Bobby had sighed and taken him home, hoping that Dean wouldn’t take it horribly. Dean, in fact, had not. Bobby named the second cat Castiel, after an angel dude in a German movie that he caught on the television that evening, and figured that at least he couldn’t want for company now.

As he answers the fifth call about Garth in the last two weeks - damn, that kid needs to stop taking jobs in the same fucking zone and giving every police officer ever a different name - and looks at the two cats, curled around each other on his kitchen floor, dark brown against light, their noses touching.

 _I’ll be damned,_  he thinks as they nuzzle against each other.Well, if it’s the way things are, he figures that at least he won’t have to watch out for kittens anytime soon.


	3. sirens; ash/stuart; college au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Stuart is, surprisingly, the one with inhibitions about making a move on the hot guy from his basic life support class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [wexpyke](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wexpyke/pseuds/wexpyke) who wanted Ash/Stuart hs or university au - apologies in advance for how ridiculous this one is.

The thing is, Stuart thinks sadly, that telling someone ‘listen, I usually don’t like blokes and I’m actually as straight as it goes but I saw you practicing basic life support on a bloody mannequin and thought it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen’ is  _exactly_  what is going to make you look like a first class wanker and  _not_  what you’d call a decent pick-up line. The thing is that it’s the truth - the only consolation is that the guy in question is famous around campus for being decidedly out and  _definitely_ into blokes, so at least he wouldn’t reject the offer on those terms. But still, telling  _that_  to someone you’ve seen twice because the class started last week probably wouldn’t be the best way to get laid - scratch that, it’d probably mean blowing off every chance on principle.

So he doesn’t go sit next to Ashley Greenwick that time or the following and most certainly doesn’t ask him out, and if Maxine tells him off one evening with  _go unleash your repressed sexual tension on someone else_ , well, it’s nothing he hadn’t suspected could happen.

Then it happens that some three weeks after the class starts, he volunteers to show how to do mouth-to-mouth respiration on that same mannequin since no one else was doing it - well, if only med school was just  _that_  - and the last thing he expects after he’s done is Ash walking up to him, his cheek only a shade lighter than his hair.

"Uhm. Stuart, right?"

"Yeah. What can I do for you?"

"Fuck, this is going to sound so fucking weird. And I’m probably going to come across as a bloody creeper."

"Well, go ahead. Nothing that’s scared me before."

"It’s just - uhm, before, while you were doing  _that_  - oh, bloody hell, listen, if you’re not into men that’s cool, but if that’s not a deal breaker, would you be up to get a drink sometime?"

Stuart blinks once. Then twice. Then he doesn’t even stop himself from grinning as wide as he can.

"Does tonight work for you?" he asks before Ash can assume that he’s making fun of him.

When Ash licks his lips for a moment before answering that he’s perfectly fine with it, Stuart figures that this might end up going a lot better than he could have ever thought.


	4. the dark tower; roland/eddie; halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Eddie tries to explain Halloween to Roland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [majorheelturn](http://tumblr.com/majorheelturn), who wanted the two of them either discussing it or trick or treating or similar.

“No. No, you aren’t getting  ** _it_**. It’s not some kind of ritual.”

“How would you call it then?” Roland raises an eyebrow as he speaks, looking absolutely like he’s not buying what Eddie is trying to sell.

Damn Jake for mentioning Halloween before going to gather firewood with Susannah and leaving him _here_  to explain it. 

“It’s a fucking  _holiday_ , Roland. Which might have its roots in Very Serious Religious European Business, I suppose, but as it is right now? It’s just an excuse to dress up without no one bitching at you or for children to die of sugar poisoning.”

“Dress up.”

“Yes. If you’re under twelve you dress up and go knock on doors and ask for candy. Well, they say trick or treat, like they’ll make your life hell if you don’t give them the treat, but if you’re not an idiot you’re stocked up on sweets that day. If you’re over twelve, you just dress up and go to someone’s party and it’s an excuse to get drunk. Kids get candy, the others get the booze and whoever has to provide it just goes with it. Not to mention that it’s not – it’s not  _worldwide_ ** _._** ”

“Does it happen just in New York?”

“Nah. In the whole nation. But no other nation does it. Or is so obsessed about it. Whatever, it’s just an excuse to waste money by now.”

Roland still doesn’t look entirely convinced. “Jake wouldn’t agree with you.”

 “Jake is a kid. And good for him that he’ll never arrive at the stage where he finds out that it’s a pretty darn stupid holiday. Except for the free food. Good for him that he still thinks it’s fun.”

“Why, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t I  _what_?”

“Think that it was… fun. As you put it.”

 Eddie doesn’t laugh in Roland’s face just because Roland doesn’t deserve it. Then again, it’s not like Roland can know all the fine facts of Eddie’s life Before They Met. He can’t know that he’s always hated it. Then again, he remembers just one before his sister died, and it’s not like he recalls much of it – just that his mother picked his costume without listening to him when he said that he  _hated_  Casper. After then, for a number of years after his sister died neither him or Henry were allowed to go at all. And when they  _could_ , obviously Henry had to go with him. Not going into the fact that Henry  _never_ seemed to like whatever costume Eddie picked, obviously he  _always_  made sure to remind him that he could be out with his friends or doing much more interesting things than watching his little brother while he knocked around doors in their building. Which is why most of the candy always somehow went to  _him_. And after three years of that Eddie had decided that it wasn’t worth it – and on top of that, since Henry always found it  _hilarious_  when Eddie said he wanted to go as Iron Man, he never actually went in a costume he  _wanted_  to wear.

Long story short, he hates the fucking holiday.

“Never was my thing. And my brother wasn’t good company. Not that people even stick to the rules, anyway – you should go as some kind of monster and they go as fucking whoever.”

“Why?” 

“Dunno. Probably took a page from Europe where there’s something similar happening but don’t have to dress according to a theme. Usually you go as people you like or admire or something. Even real people.”

“Real people?”

“Yeah. Like, hey, if you had Halloween in Gilead back during the times I suppose you could have dressed like your teacher.”

 “Cort? He’d have killed us the moment he opened the door.”

Eddie can’t help the snort coming out of his mouth at that. “Well, seems to me like you’re getting the gist of it.”

 “If you say so,” Roland answers, but he still doesn’t look entirely convinced. Or better, he’s  _totally_ thinking that People From Eddie’s World Are Plain Crazy, which – well, maybe he does have a point.

Still. This entire conversation is leaving a bad taste in his mouth for some reason. He’s  _not_  going to feel sorry for himself because Henry screwed up a good part of his life  _again_  – he spent enough time doing that gig, he’s done, thanks so very much.

“Yeah, I say so.” He’s about to add to that answer when he hears Susannah’s voice coming their way, which means that Jake is with her, and Eddie isn’t the kind of jerk to keep on that conversation in front of the kid. So he keeps his mouth shut, for once.

Except that after they make camp he stays up longer than Susannah – he just doesn’t feel like sleeping. The last thing he expects is Roland joining him there while he’s mindlessly carving a piece of wood with maybe a bit too much force. 

“You said that it’s not just kids doing it,” Roland says, and Eddie wishes he’d just drop it already.

“Not necessarily. As stated, a lot of people want excuses to dress up.”

“And what would you wear now if you had to do it?”

“What? Roland, I haven’t done Halloween since I was… ten. Or eleven. Why the fuck would I do it now?”

“Pure curiosity.”

Eddie totally doesn’t buy that, but it’s not like he doesn’t know Roland – he won’t spill what this is about until he wants to.

Then again, it doesn’t mean that they have to play by  _his_  rules. “I’m not answering if you don’t do it first.”

“You want to know what  ** _I_**  would wear.”

“Yeah. Surprise me.”

Roland actually fucking  _thinks_  about it, and he has the I’m Pondering This Problem Seriously expression, and Eddie can’t help being mildly freaked out.

“You said that the original point is dressing up as a monster, is it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I suppose a  lobstrosity would do.”

 “… you’d go as a  _lobstrosity_ ** _._** ”

“It’s a monster,” Roland replies, and fuck him, he’s not kidding. He means it. “And you still haven’t answered the question.”

 Eddie shakes his head and – well. He owes it to Roland to think about it for – for one minute, at least. Except that as stated, Eddie wasn’t really much for the monster side of the entire thing, and he’s too old and has gone through too much crap for finding appealing the idea of going as some comic book hero.

 Which leaves the ‘dress as someone you admire’ option.

 Well then. He smiles slightly before putting down his piece of wood. It looks like a maimed turtle – shows that he was attacking the wood rather than carving it.

 “You’re finding it difficult to answer,” Roland states, and Eddie doesn’t want to know how long he had stayed silent.

 “Nah. Not really. Considering that I never really stuck to the rules, I’d go as someone I like.”

 “So?”

 “Yeah, all things considered, I think I’d go as you.”

 “ _What_?”

 “Your attire isn’t that hard to find, my friend. And you heard that right the first time. I’d have to fight myself to stay in character since you don’t talk as much as any well-adjusted person should, but I think I’d do all right.”

 Roland opens his mouth, then closes it. And fuck that, he looks – pleased? Maybe not that exactly, but surely surprised in the good way. Eddie can’t help feeling slightly smug at that – the day when he left Roland without words finally arrived, hallelujah.

 “You  _would_  do that,” Roland finally says.

 “Watch me. Well, watch me if and when I have the chance to show you.”

 Roland doesn’t give him an answer, but Eddie can see it – he’s gloating, or well, what passes for gloating in Deschain facial expressions.

 He doesn’t tell Roland that he wasn’t joking and that he really meant it. He’s sure he doesn’t need to.


	5. the dark tower; roland/eddie; publishers au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Roland is a sci-fi publisher and Eddie thinks that working for him is the best job he ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [blindednickandros](http://blindednickandros.tumblr.com/) who asked an AU of whichever kind for them and clearly I ended up with THIS. Don't ask me where it came from.

So, thing is, Eddie usually likes his job - reading through the manuscripts sent to Midworld to see if they’re fit for publishing is definitely a fucking lot better than he’d ever thought he’d get when Henry used to make fun of him because he took an English Lit course at the community college - but this one? This one is so  _bad_  that by the time he’s at page fifty out of three hundred he’s shaking his head and standing out of his chair, heading straight for the room with the plaque reading  _Deschain_.

"Listen," he says the moment he walks in, “I don’t give a shit about  _why_ Calvin Tower decided that this was good enough to pass the first test and sending it to  _me_ , and I don’t give a shit about him using to work in a fucking bookshop - if you green light this, I’m out."

His boss looks up from his own book and looks straight at him, and for a moment Eddie feels kind of small - then again, when your boss looks like Clint Eastwood and has the most piercing eyes in the history of piercing blue eyes, you tend to have that reaction every time. Roland makes a motion with his hand, telling Eddie to hand it over, and Eddie does.

“ _Discordia_? It’s not  _that_  bad of a title."

"Yeah. And it’s another fucking  _Fifty Shades_ rip-off, except that this one is post-apocalyptic and happening on another planet on another solar system. And I can bet that the author has  _ **not**_ opened an anatomy book once in their life. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at page forty-eight and tell me if it’s possible that someone can stand up and walk straight after four fucks in a row. By the way, it’s two dudes."

Roland raises an eyebrow and his face remains impassive throughout page forty-eight and forty-nine, but then he gets to fifty and he opens his mouth once, then closes it along with the manuscript.

Then he proceeds to throw it into the trash.

"I knew there was a reason why I hired you," he says matter-of-fact a moment later.

"Well, good to know my boss appreciates my hard work."

"Eddie, you have another five to read before the end of the week."

"Fine, fine, we’re still getting lunch later, though."

Roland rolls his eyes and doesn’t say no. Eddie is smirking as he leaves the room and goes back to his desk - yes, the best job ever, and best perks ever, he thinks as he sits down and reaches for the manuscript, anticipating lunch very eagerly.


	6. the dark tower; roland/eddie; bruce springsteen concert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where they're attending a Springsteen concert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [majorheelturn](http://majorheelturn.tumblr.com/) who asked for the two of them at a Bruce concert - this has vague spoilers for the ending of VII and it's technically a canon divergence without explanations but just go with it..? ;)

"Did we  _really_  have to do this?"

Eddie is torn between shaking his head fondly and sighing out loud in frustration. Then again if long, tall and ugly hasn’t ever set foot at a rock concert ever since they broke the loop and left the fucking tower standing where it was and ended up in  _Eddie_ ’s New York - and since it’s been a couple of years the thing is absolutely abysmally  _wrong_  as far as Eddie is concerned - it’s not like Eddie can blame him for this specific issue. Not to mention that the tickets were Eddie’s birthday present, and the fact that Roland wanted it to be a surprise and got standing tickets rather than sitting as he had been trying is actually kind of sweet, and after  _everything_  Eddie thinks that he deserves a fucking break.

"Roland, Roland, I do realize that this is what you’d call a huge crowd for your standards, but since we had standing tickets, it was eitherthe front or getting in the back, and if you have to bother with standing then you might as well go to the front."

Roland shrugs, looking like some kind of alien entity in a Springsteen first row. “If you say so."

"You won’t regret that when it actually starts. Come on, stop sulking. You earned the right to have some fucking fun. And if it’s not enough to convince you about this, well, this might have been the nicest birthday present I ever got."

At that, Roland’s eyes go just imperceptibly softer and Eddie doesn’t think he regrets putting that look on his face at all.

"Actually, that’d be the  _only_  nice birthday present I ever present I ever got in my life. You should feel honored instead of sulking."

"You wish," Roland mutters, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to have a claustrophobic attack anytime soon.

And Eddie figures that they earned something nice, and after all this is not the late eighties anymore, so he reaches out and grabs Roland’s hand - no one blinks an eyelid.

Roland merely raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t move away.

"Just to remind you that even if it looks like I have a mancrush on Bruce, you don’t have to start worrying."

"As if. Not that I don’t understand your point."

"… what?"

"As I think you would put it, far from me to imply that he doesn’t have a nice ass."

He says it so matter-of-fact that Eddie can’t help laughing out loud at that.

Then they don’t have to wait much longer - it starts maybe ten minutes later, and when Eddie turns out and glances at Roland after  _Badlands_  starts and sees that his lips are slightly parted and that he finally seems to  _get the fucking deal_ , he goes back to singing his lungs out, knowing that they’re both going to enjoy every second of it.


	7. the dark tower; roland/eddie; youtube celebrities AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Roland becomes a youtube star by mere chance and Eddie loves every second of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last fill for the characters meme. Majorheelturn asked for Roland/Eddie + Lizzie Bennet, which was... er. One of them is a youtube celebrity.
> 
> This quickly spiraled out of control. I'm sorry.
> 
> Supposed to be set in a fix-it universe after book seven/takes book seven into account so handwave everything and just roll with it.

So, Eddie hadn’t exactly planned this through - or at least, he had sort of planned it, but he hadn’t thought it would get out of hand this fast. Okay, maybe he had been sort of drunk when he had sat in front of the camera on the day of Henry’s birthday and launched into a tirade about all the ways in which you shouldn’t fuck up your little brother’s life until Roland had grabbed his shoulder, pulled him on the side, looked into the camera and said  _while that was not a thought-out argument, he’s making an entirely great point_ before shutting it off. It probably was a good thing Roland had cut him off at that point. Anyway, he definitely was hungover when he put the thing on youtube, not that he was even thinking of the consequences. But hey, he likes this twenty-first century they landed themselves in for good and youtube is  _amazing -_ damn, he’d have paid back in the eighties to have that instead of keeping MTV on all the time in hopes they’d air some videoclips he liked. So why not. It wasn’t like he had thought anyone would watch that.  _Wrong_. People did watch that, and left sympathetic comments with the exceptions of a few assholes, but a lot of them were quite curious about the guy showing up in the end.  _Is he your boyfriend, where he comes from, isn’t the guy a bit too old for you - though I guess he’s plenty hot, now that’s an interesting face, hey your roomie is a piece of work._

Eddie, who certainly never was the kind of person to get angry when someone else steals their thunder, at that point had maybe filmed Roland while he was putting together his lunch - still the damn gunslinger burritos, god, can’t he move on from Mid-World food? - and had maybe put that on youtube as well (fine, he asked permission, he’s not that kind of dick, and Roland had just shrugged and said  _if it please you_ , the way he always does when he doesn’t even attempt to  _get it_ ). So okay, he hadn’t expected the thing to get half a million hits  _in two days._  And more comments.  _Can I have the recipe? Looks like shit I could actually not burn, oh my god your roomie cooks?, hey there how about you tell him that he should keep on smashing gender stereotypes like that?_  and so on. Roland had read that last one with a completely straight face before asking Eddie what the hell did they mean. Eddie had shrugged and explained it as best as he could, at which Roland replied  _does your world seriously look down on men who cook_ , and hadn’t objected when Eddie filmed him ironing. (The guy says it’s relaxing. Hell, Roland likes to do  _laundry._  Eddie was less freaked out when Roland first showed up, to be honest.) That video gets a million hits in two days.

Eddie honestly  _does_  ask every time, but Roland always shrugs and say yes. So he films him doing the laundry and then  _doing a tutorial for it_  because people asked how he managed to never get it wrong, then cooking again, then washing the dishes with a scary gunslinger precision. Eddie’s youtube hits go past the billion mark in a month. And he  _never_  is in the videos at all, but hey, whenever he tells Roland that people loved the last one or that they’re complimenting his skills or that he has a damn nice ass for someone looking way older than thirty, he always smiles this small, pleased grin that makes Eddie’s knees go weak, so why the hell not. At some point, though, someone does ask  _if your boyfriend does everything around the house what do_ you _do,_  at which Eddie cracks up and answers  _dude, I actually work_ (because he is in a company’s directors board, thank you). At some other point, some idiot asks  _I’ve only seen you once but isn’t your boyfriend really too old for you_  ten times during the next ten uploads, which Roland does see. He looks at the comments for a minute, then asks Eddie to  _please get the damned camera out_. The video consists in ten minutes of Roland staring into the camera, taking very long pauses in between his sentences and taking all that time to basically say that he’s glad to show people how to avoid mixing the colors in their laundry but to never, ever question why the two of them would be a thing. Thing is, Eddie is mildly terrified when he turns the camera off, though he guesses it was the point. That particular video gets  _two million hits_  in two days. It lands the channel on some buzzfeed article about  _the hottest youtube celebrities of the last six months._ When Eddie tells Roland he’s actually won second place, Roland looks  _very_ pleased about it. Then he asks if it’s customary to make special videos in these occasions. To thank their  _followers_. _  
_

Eddie laughs until he cries and then films Roland as he explains with deadly seriousness how to wash blood off white cotton. His inbox is floored with grateful comments, most of them coming from actual _thirty-year old soccer moms_  who apparently never learned to wash scrapes-related blood from their kids’ clothes. He tries not to choke on his own coffee and decides that out of all his drunk decisions, this was the best one hands down.


	8. lost; boone/shannon; jughead au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Boone and Shannon were born on the island after WWII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [lenina20](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lenina20/pseuds/lenina20) who asked for an au where they're in the seventies and born on the island/working for Dharma. Very mild sexual content.

Boone is breathing faster now as she takes the zipper of his fuck-ugly jumpsuit between her fingers, not pulling it down - she looks up at him, moves even closer, hoping that he can read in her eyes that she would be more than willing to go forward with this, if only he agrees with her.

“Come with me,” Shannon whispers - and she might feel a bit guilty because she knows he’s wanted this for years and never made a move on her, and she can see that he’s desperately wanting to believe that she means this (she doesn’t, not really, not like he wants, but she can pretend for a bit and she can’t possibly leave this godforsaken piece of rock on her own, without money and without a thing in her name).

He reaches out with his hand, traces her bottom lip, and when she kisses his fingertips she can feel his resolve crumbling, and she knows he’ll come with her even if he really never felt the need to leave - and fine, she’ll eventually feel guilty about breaking his heart, but she likes to think she knows him well enough to tell herself that he will eventually get over it.


	9. lost; boone/charlie; coffee shop au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Charlie is writing his solo record and has a crush on the waiter working at the coffee shop near the studio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [toestastegood](http://archiveofourown.org/users/toestastegood/pseuds/toestastegood) who wanted a coffee shop au with the two of them.

"And this would be your espresso and apple pie," the oh-so-gorgeous-American waiter tells him with a smile as he puts the tray on Charlie’s table - not that Charlie is even looking at his order, since he’s kind of busy thinking that  _Boone_ (or so his tag reads) has bloody gorgeous eyes, not that he hasn’t noticed it since the first time he set foot in the shop three months ago.

It’s kind of ridiculous that Charlie hasn’t found the guts to at least ask the guy out for coffee yet, but while having left Liam on his own to write his solo record has done wonders for his self-esteem, it hasn’t done enough in that sense - it wouldn’t be too bad if he wasn’t living in fear that the guy might be an exchange student and could go back to the US any time.

"Hey," Boone asks a moment later, after pocketing the money Charlie handed him, “weren’t you in Driveshaft? Until a while ago, anyway."

"Oh, uhm, yes, I was, but I’m kind of doing my own thing now - I have a studio near here, trying to put a solo record together and everything. Why, you liked us?"

"Well," Boone answers, “if I have to tell the truth, my roommate owned one of your records and the only song I liked was the bonus track."

The one  _Charlie_  had sung.

"But if you’re doing your own record, then I think I might buy it. And I’d probably like it signed," he says, winking at Charlie, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.

"I think you’ll be the first I sign it for then," Charlie replies, feeling himself grinning back and completely meaning it.


	10. lost; jack/boone; apocalypse au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where they're the only two people left on the island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [electrictsunami](http://tumblr.com/electrictsunami), who wanted an apocalypse au - aaaah, the hatch, good times. Also, if you think that the virus in this is the Croatoan from SPN, you have it exactly right.

Jack can feel water pounding against both of the hatch’s doors.

He isn’t sure that he’s ever going to open them again, or not anytime soon, anyway. He shudders, thinking of what’s on the outside - he wishes that the small volcano eruption and the perpetual thunderstorms were the most of it. He remembers when everyone but him and Boone got sick with that damn virus that he couldn’t figure out - sure as hell no one taught him in medical school how to cure a virus that turns people into fucking zombies if you don’t shoot them in the head before eight hours.

He hopes the thunderstorm at least washed away the bodies - better in the sea than rotting on this godforsaken island. There’s enough food for years in the pantry, at least, but Jack doesn’t really like to think about the future. He hears the countdown to 108 beeping, but then it stops after a moment.

He finishes his granola bar and walks into the computer room - Boone is standing from the chair and limps straight for the sofa, favoring the leg that wasn’t almost crushed by a plane once, almost collapsing on it. Of course he would - he’s had the last twelve turns or so.

"Do you want to catch some sleep?" Jack asks. “I can take care of that."

"Could you? I feel like sleeping for a century," Boone sighs as he lays down on the cushions. “But really, I just need a couple of hours. I can go cook us something later."

"Sure," Jack says, “knock yourself out. And I just had something to eat, you can take more."

"No point. That thing’s gonna wake me up anyway."

He sounds as if he’s about to pass out any moment, and blue eyes fall shut a second later as he snuggles against the side of the sofa.

Jack ponders the situation, then leans back behind him and puts an arm around his waist - he’s not going to fall asleep since he woke up half an hour ago, but they both can use this and he knows it. He wraps his fingers around Boone’s wrist and tries not to look at the  ** _102_**  on the wall in front of his eyes, and listens to the storm pounding against the ceiling.


	11. lost; jack/boone; post-finale fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Jack and Boone have a long overdue conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the birthday extravaganza prompts for [eclectictsunami](http://eclectictsunami.tumblr.com/) who wanted random angst/fluffy jack/boone fic - idk how angsty it is but I tried. ;)

“You know, I never got around to thank you properly.”

Jack was  _not_  expecting anyone to walk up to him, and maybe – maybe  _dead_  people shouldn’t gasp out loud when they don’t hear someone coming from behind them, but he’s not going to dwell on that specific thing.

Hell, he still has problems wrapping his head around all this  _being dead and having lived two lives_  business, and he still has not quite grasped the way things work  _over here_ , so he just – doesn’t think about it.

The island is a lot nicer, though, this time around.

“Thank me for what? And since when you became this stealthy?”

Boone smirks just a tiny bit and moves closer to him. “You  _can_  be quite dumb when you want do, can’t you? Just look at where we are.”

Right. The caves. Where no one hangs these days, unless it’s to get water.

_Oh. Right. The caves, indeed._

“No need to thank me. I took an oath, you know.”

“I can’t remember  _giving your patient your own blood_  anywhere in the hyppocratic oath, Jack.”

“Wait, you remember that?”

“I remember everything,” Boone answers, his lips drawn into a thin line for a moment. “Well, I remembered everything in – on the other side. Or however you want to call it. But the whole blood donation thing wasn’t what I was thanking you for.”

“You still don’t have to thank me for anything.”

“Just answer me something. If I hadn’t told you to let me go, would you have gone through with – cutting off the leg and everything else that came with it? Even if everyone else told you there was no way I was going to pull through?”

“Of course I would have.” Jack doesn’t even hesitate there – he wasn’t shouting at people not to tell him what he couldn’t do for nothing. He  _would_ have gone through with it indeed.

“See, you didn’t even think twice about it. Now, just hear me out. You  _know_  how I died. Don’t say anything, me and John worked that out already and there’s no need to bring it up.”

“I do.”

“Right. I don’t know if anyone ever informed you of that, but that plane crashed the day after my stepsister kinda seduced me and then dumped me three hours later, just to make sure that I wouldn’t leave her stranded in Australia. The only thing my mother ever cared about when I was concerned was whether I’d take over her damned wedding company. I’m not looking for a pity party here, but I think you were the first person in years who actually – well. Put me first. Don’t think I didn’t appreciate it, even if – well. It turned out the way it did.”

And then – he probably knows that Jack is kind of floored right now, who wouldn’t be, because _he didn’t know that_  and what do you even answer to this kind of thing? – he moves so that they’re in front of each other.

“So,  _thank you_. Don’t try to convince me I don’t have to say it.”

Jack is fishing for some answer that might not sound entirely dumb when Boone moves even closer, puts his hands on his shoulders and firmly kisses the corner of his mouth once.

“Well, I also had been wanting to do  _that_  for a while, but I never got the chance. And I suppose I should leave you to think about it.”

“What –”

“You  _should_  think about it. And if you’re interested, you know where I am. After all, it looks like things are pretty flexible around here, aren’t they?”

Jack stares at Boone’s back as he walks away, trying to straighten the entire thing out – that was entirely too much information. But yeah, Boone kind of was right on things being  _flexible_  – they might have come here in pairs but it’s been two months and half of them have been happily disregarding them. No one ever discussed that out loud but everyone knows how it is, and Jack hasn’t exactly taken advantage of that until now, but –

The thing is that, it wasn’t even a proper kiss but he doesn’t think anyone has ever kissed him so – so  _intently_  in his entire life. It wasn’t just nice – it was obvious that it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.

Well, Boone  _said_  it.  _I had been wanting to do that for a while_.

_Why not_? Jack thinks.

Maybe he was the one person who  _put Boone first_ , whatever he meant with that (though Jack thinks he understood and it doesn’t make him feel any better at all), but sure as hell he’s never been with anyone who ever looked at him that way (no, not even Kate ever did), and so –

Really. Why not? He smiles a little to himself and starts walking in the direction Boone took when he left – he’s pretty sure he can’t have gone far.

He doesn’t need to think about it that much further.

 

End.


	12. asoiaf; jon connington + loras tyrell, post series

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Jon knows that he and Loras have something in common.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [striped-coat](http://striped-coat.tumblr.com/), who wanted a post-series meeting between the two of them. Aaand uhm this is.. depressing?

"You miss him," Jon sighs as he sits down next to Loras Tyrell in the Red Keep’s garden. The knight turns towards him, his face cautiously blank and covered in burn scars, and Jon can see his fingers curl into the green and gold of the heavy cloak covering him.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, my lord." He sounds older than he should, too, but Jon can guess why.

"There’s no need to pretend," Jon sighs, looking down at his maimed hand - thankfully the greyscale didn’t spread after he had his fingers cut, but maybe he should have let it run its course. “There’s nothing more I want than seeing a certain person again, and that person is long dead. And from what I hear you’re doing the same, except that the one you miss wasn’t named Rhaegar Targaryen."

Loras’s eyes go wide at that, and Jon figures that it must show how much he understands  _ **that**_  kind of pain exactly.

"How do you know?" he asks, resigned.

"It’s no secret," Jon shrugs as he looks towards the castle. He pictures Aegon sitting on the throne and smiles slightly before it falls from his own lips. “I kept mine a bit better, I think, but it’s not as if it matters now."

"How can it matter? When the sun has set, no fucking candle can replace it. Or any fire, for that matter."

"No," Jon agrees. “You’re right on both accounts, ser."

"Why are you asking me this?" Loras asks.

"Because I know that being a hostage for your father’s good behavior can’t be ideal, and I know exactly how you feel. If you ever want to talk about it, ask for me."

Loras stares at him for a moment, fine features still covered in burn scars that look almost crimson in the sunset’s light. “My thanks. My lord."

Jon can hear when a conversation is over, and so he nods and stands up, walking back towards the keep, and when he realizes that it’s been almost fifteen years since that particular sun has set for him, not even knowing that he fulfilled his promise and seen Rhaegar’s son on the throne is enough to make him feel any less cold.


	13. asoiaf; jaime/brienne; high school au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Brienne is Jaime's date for winter formal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually two ficlets - an anon asked me once for a high school au and then []()katnovak did the same the last time I took prompts so I just made the second a sequel to the first and I'm posting them together.

For a moment Jaime thinks that Brienne is going to punch him in the face right there in the middle of the hallway, and maybe he should have asked her somewhere more private - her eyes have gone wider than he ever remembers them being, total disbelief written on her features, but then again he should have expected it (he  _did_  get detention for sending Ronnet Connington to the school’s infirmary after all, and with very good reason).

“Before you tell me to fuck off - listen, I meant it, I really did, and I know that you probably don’t believe me, and if you say no I won’t hold it against you, not when it means that my sister won’t leave you alone for the rest of the year, at least, but I swear I’m not fucking with you, all right?”

He feels like an idiot for having just rambled at her like that, but he isn’t prepared for the tiny smile that she gives him a moment later - tiny, of course, but it lights up her eyes and her entire face, homely as it is -, or for her hand to tentatively reach out for his as she says, “Jaime, of course I would come with you - if you’re sure.” And - well, he has to show her, doesn’t he, and so he kisses her right in the middle of the hallway, and if he can hear his sister murmuring in the background, he doesn’t care - he’s pretty sure he won’t regret having asked her to be his winter formal date.

\--

When the doorbell rings, Brienne is still up in her room staring at herself in the mirror - Sansa has long left, but she’s been here half of the afternoon to help her getting ready for winter formal and Brienne is still trying to decide whether she actually likes the result or not. She supposes it’s not  _bad_  - they went shopping before and now she’s wearing dark blue jeans that aren’t her usual ‘I-paid-it-five-quid-at-a-street-market’ type and a pale azure button-down that for some kind of miracle fit her perfectly - Sansa had told her to at least keep the first button open and Brienne is sorely tempted to close it, but she keeps her hands fisted in her pockets so that she doesn’t surrender to the temptation. She had tried to refuse make-up and in the end they had compromised on just a bit of blue eye-shadow - she doesn’t look  _terrible_ , fine, but it still feels like staring at a stranger. Especially because she’s not wearing her hair tied in her usual ponytail - Sansa had said that she should leave it loose. As she walks down the stairs in her new dark blue flats, she thinks that she’s done something incredibly stupid - she’s sure that Jaime had meant it, no one kisses someone the way he had kissed her after she said yes if they don’t mean it, but she still feels wary about this. She can dance decently, but she’s not dying to show everyone else, and she knows that his sister won’t ever cut him slack for going through with this. Then again, her dad is looking at her almost proudly as she goes to open the door, so - fine. She’s doing this.

She opens the door to find herself in front of Jaime - he’s wearing a black coat, a dark gray suit without a tie and a silk red shirt that fits him like a glove, and for a moment she thinks inconsequently that she’s glad that he didn’t use on his hair that stupid gel that every other guy in the school seems to be crazy about - for a moment she thinks that she’d like to run a hand through his hair. Then she notices that - that he’s handing her a small bouquet of lilies.

"Well, I heard Ronnet Connington tried to give you roses once. I figured they were a bad idea."

Her fingers are shaking as she takes the flowers. “You thought - you thought well. Thank you, but you didn’t have to."

"I don’t do things because I  _have_  to, Brienne. I do them because I  _want_  to. So, shall we?"

He holds her arm out to her, and he’s looking at her as if he  _really_  likes what he sees, and - and she can’t help smiling back at him. She grabs her coat from the hanger near the door and puts it on before linking her arm with his.

Suddenly, she doesn’t feel too worried about how it’s going to go at all.


	14. asoiaf; jaime/brienne; accidentally matching halloween costumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Brienne hadn't planned on, in order: going to her dorm's Halloween party, running into Jaime Lannister there, finding out their costumes match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [thequeenrhaenyra](http://thequeenrhaenyra.tumblr.com/) who wanted _Jaime and Brienne plus accidentally matching Halloween costumes._ This is entirely _not_ serious college au with half-assed backstory and crossdressing on both sides - I don't even know, okay.

“Isn’t this  _hilarious_ ,” Jaime Lannister says, looking as if he can barely hold back laughter, and why wouldn’t he.

If only  _she_  wasn’t part of the joke, Brienne would laugh as well.

“Isn’t it  _just_ ,” she manages to say, while of course everyone else around them is barely trying to stifle chuckling, because of course everyone finds this as hilarious as Jaime does.

Well.

As stated, she can hardly blame them for the general idea.

Thing is, she hadn’t really wanted to dress up or anything and surely she hadn’t wanted to go to her dorm’s party – it’s a pretty decent dorm, and she has made a few friends, but  _of course_ finally being in uni hasn’t meant leaving behind the days of the  _can I convince her to sleep with me and then have a laugh_  betting pools. She hardly wanted to go to a party that she knew both Hyle Hunt and Ronnet Connington were attending.

But then Renly and Loras had shown up at her door and Renly had told her that it was imperative that she’d go and seriously, did she even care about what those few losers thought of her, and – Brienne is just really thankful that her crush on Renly is a thing that died at the beginning of high school and that they can be friends now. At least she has  _some_  friends she more or less hangs out with.

Anyway, she had caved in just so that they would stop bugging her, and there was really no time for perfecting costumes, so she had just figured she’d put together something quickly. She had some old torn shirts of her dad’s that she uses on days when she doesn’t have to leave her room and her roommate is entirely willing to lend her some make-up, so she had taken a bit to put together what in the end passed for a fair Frankenstein monster costume – the clothes are pretty much spot-on, she had a pair of old boots that would have worked perfectly and while she’s hardly going to replicate the original make-up, with a bit of effort she had enough scars on her neck and fake stitches on her cheeks to make it work. She even went to the janitor and asked for a few dismissed electrodes to glue to her neck to make it even more obvious. Never mind that her height and bulk are perfect for the part, and she had figured that since not many people complimented her face on a daily basis she was good even without the mask.

The last thing she had expected, though, was to get to the blasted party and run into Jaime Lannister.

Who isn’t even supposed to be at  _this_  party.

Then again, Jaime Lannister isn’t even supposed to be majoring in history. Until last semester it was his minor and he was majoring in economics, he was famous all along campus for his surname – good thing when your dad is a banker rich enough that people actually know who he is – and they had only Medieval history together, and they had argued ferociously until they were paired on an assignment. During which he had surprisingly been very mature and hard-working, and they hadn’t argued  _that_  much, and they had the best grade out of the entire class. From that point on they had been more or less friendly towards each other, until Jaime went back home for spring break and came back two months later with longer hair, missing his right hand –  _it was an accident_  is everything he’ll say about it – and a switched major. Which meant that he shared  _most_  of his classes with Brienne back in their first year and now. Also, he still lives in his old dorm but spends most of his time with his friend Arthur who’s graduating this year and is in Brienne’s dorm as well, so she supposes that’s why he crashed this party.

Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is that he’s dressed as  _the bloody bride of Frankenstein._  Including a black and white wig perfectly replicating the hair cut, a long white dress and bandages all over his arms, including the one without the hand.

And now that everyone has seen them next to each other, they find it  _hilarious_. As hilarious as Jaime, probably.

“Was that a dare?” Brienne asks, because he’d be the first man she meets who willingly puts on a  _dress_  for Halloween.

“Not really. I mean. Arthur dared me, but we were both drunk. Then again, the morning after I thought  _why the hell not_. Why, you think I don’t have the looks for it, Tarth?”

Brienne groans out loud. Damn him. The problem is that  _he has_. He doesn’t exactly look much the part, but he’s an extremely handsome man and he has shaved and you can’t see that his hair is really blonde under that wig, so while he doesn’t look like Elsa Lanchester’s split copy he surely isn’t doing a bad job of making that costume work.

“Don’t you worry about  _that_ , you do. Well, I guess I’ll leave you to find your friend then.”

Jaime rolls his eyes. “My friend has disappeared  _somewhere_  with Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and that redhead who’s completely gone for Rhaegar, what’s the name even –”

“Jon Connington,” Brienne sighs.

“Right. And I don’t really want to know what they’re doing so  _no_ , I’m actually all on my lonesome. And you?”

Brienne shrugs. “Renly and Loras are – somewhere. I suppose in the general direction of the bathroom.”

“You know,” he says very casually, “there’s some costume contest somewhere in the arts building.”

“And so what?”

“So we should  _totally_  go! I mean, not to brag, but I look  _awesome_  in this, and you’re not too bad yourself. We could totally score at least the third prize.”

“Really. And what are the prizes?”

“Meh, I think alcohol of some kind. You think they have money to spare? But hey. It’s booze and we don’t have to share it with sixty other people.”

“You want to go with  _me_  to a  _Halloween costume contest_.”

“Hey, we’re even perfectly matched in  _every other way_.” He winks at her and she groans for the umpteenth time. Right. Because she’s actually taller than him. “Besides, while I love the look, I always thought the bride was kind of a bitch towards the poor monster, so I solemnly swear I won’t be  _as_  bitchy and I won’t ditch you after two minutes.”

She looks at him for a moment. Then.

“You  _really_  mean that, don’t you.”

“Sure. Also, I really want to get out of here. This party blows, but – well, Tarth,  _you_  and your costume really don’t. Unless you’re interested, because if it’s like that –”

And then he stops midway through the sentence, and he looks quite horrified at himself, because  _he honestly wasn’t thinking about what he was saying_  as usual, and  _what he has just said_  –

“Shit, just forget I ever said –”

“Did you mean it?” Brienne interrupts him, because all of a sudden this has become a lot more serious.

“What? I, uh –”

“How about you finish that sentence, Lannister?”

“Well, I was going to say,  _if it’s like that then we can arrange it without a problem because I might have been thinking about that since the third time you argued with me in history class_ , but –”

Brienne doesn’t let herself fall prey of her usual doubts, because he’s looking uncomfortable enough – for his standards anyway – and it’s a dead ringer that he means it. She can worry about  _how_  did that happen later.

“What if I said that I will go to your stupid costume contest and we can discuss that later?”

The green in his eyes suddenly seems a shade darker as he grins and moves just a bit closer.

“Then I’d say that it would be  _very_  rude not to help a lady out, wouldn’t it?”

Brienne makes a show out of shaking her head, but then she holds out her arm so his elbow can hook around hers.

“Far from me to be rude to my  _future wife_.”

He stares at her for a moment and then laughs loud enough that half of the room turns to look at them.

She should feel very embarrassed, but all of a sudden she realizes she’s not.

She smiles to herself and decides that she’s entirely fine with this arrangement, and if they score free alcohol, she won’t be the one complaining.

 

End.


	15. asoiaf; theon + wex; modern au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon doesn't mind too much giving maths repetitions to the kid next door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [wexpyke](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wexpyke/pseuds/wexpyke) who wanted those two in a modern au setting - I still have no clue how this happened but details, I suppose. ;)

“Well, seems to me that if you give it a try you aren’t half as bad at this as everyone thinks - seriously, only someone desperate would want  _me_  to tutor them in anything and you’re nowhere near desperate, if you want my opinion,” Theon mutters as he goes through the maths homework in his hands - most of it is correct, which only convinces him that the kid used to suck at it because no one ever bothered to actually explain it to him. He looks over at Wex, who’s sitting in the chair next to him, looking extremely proud of himself for once - and fine, Theon’s pretty sure that when the kid is gone he’ll get shit from Rodrik or Maron again because tutoring the mute kid living next door for free isn’t what either of his brothers consider an acceptable way to pass the time, but he doesn’t really give a shit. Not when he knows enough about how it feels when no one thinks you’re good for anything (nevermind that you’d just need a bit of encouragement), so he supposes he’ll deal with it.

And fine, he’ll be dead before he admits out loud that he kind of really likes it when the kid smiles up at him again the moment he suggests that they blow this joint to go get some ice cream, he earned it after all, but it’s not like anyone but him has to know that.


	16. asoiaf; robb/theon; dystopian au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is a blade runner and Theon is more human than human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [mockyrfears](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mockyrfears), who wanted a throbb dystopian AU. I ended up writing her a Blade Runner AU - I miiiighhhtttt think about expanding on this one, but not anytime soon I fear.

"Don’t bother," Theon tells him, rain falling all over his face and his dark trench coat, his dark hair plastered all over his skin, and there’s such pain in his eyes that you wouldn’t suspect that he could ever be a replicant if you didn’t know it before.

Robb  _would_  know that, since it took him a lot more than the usual three questions of the voigt-kampff test to be sure of it, and that might have been three days ago but it feels like a life. Maybe it is. For one, three days ago he thought that the only use replicants could have on Earth was lying dead in a ditch.

"Actually, I would," Robb replies softly, tasting rain on his lips and wondering how toxic it is (not for the first time in his life).

"Don’t. We had a good time and there’s no fucking need to even go further. Really."

"I don’t think so, Theon."

"Fuck you so very much, Robb! Did you forget that three days ago I didn’t know that all my bloody memories were never  _mine_? The first real one was from two years ago. Which means that there are another two until the fucking expiration date, and it’s really not worth it."

"You’re wrong," Robb says quietly, taking a step forward. He remembers Jaime Lannister’s face on the roof as he grabbed Robb’s hand and pulled him forward, not letting him fall to his death, and shudders before reaching out and closing his fingers around Theon’s wrist.

"Your file was classified," he says quietly, “but Jon hacked into the Targaryen Corp. system and gave it to me. It said - you don’t have an expiration date."

"… what?"

"It said that - well, since you were going to live in the company, pretty much, they might as well go the whole way with the  _more human than human_  thing. You don’t have one. You might die tomorrow or a century from now or some forty years, which would probably be a better idea as far as I’m concerned."

"Robb, you aren’t -"

“ _Theon_. I have to leave. I can’t go back to what I used to do. Or to the police, fuck no. And - you said it. It was good, wasn’t it?"

Theon’s eyes go imperceptibly soft at that. “Yes," he replies, his voice sounding strangled. “But -"

"Come with me. There’s no reason why we should be miserable on our own. I don’t care what you’re supposed to be. And if you think you don’t have real memories, maybe it’s high time you make yourself some nice ones, or isn’t it?"

Theon’s fingers are cold, wet and shaking as he puts his hands on Robb’s cheeks - his fingertips are so very smooth, Robb notices for the umpteenth time.

"Do you mean that?"

"Now and always?" Robb whispers, his mouth inches from Theon’s, and when their lips meet he can feel that Theon’s mouth is curled upwards into a shaky smile. He feels all human, Robb thinks, all cold skin and trembling hands and solid weight against his chest, and as Robb pulls him closer he decides that what they are, right now, really doesn’t matter.


	17. asoiaf; robb/theon; jail au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where they're cellmates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon who asked for a jail au - there's vague reference to past non/con in here (and the non-named dude is Ramsay if anyone had any doubts left).

The thing about Robb’s cellmate is that Robb can’t exactly figure him out - for the first week, he doesn’t even ask Robb his name or - worse - tell him his own (actually, when Robb asks, he sends him a glare that makes Robb want to desist), not to mention that he has the top bunk and Robb can hear him waking up more than once each night. Then, after a week, he apparently decides that whatever he was worrying about wasn’t worth worrying about and he’s all secretive smiles and questions - he asks Robb why such a nice guy like him has ended up in fucking jail and bursts out laughing when Robb tells him that he had hacked a government site and released top secret information to a few newspapers but didn’t manage to cover his tracks fast enough. Robb learns that his name is Theon and that he really hasn’t done anything, except that his family is apparently in the mafia or something and they forced him to take the rap for a hit one of his brothers didn’t manage to pull off. He also sees that when they’re let out in the yard he always sticks to one side of it, that he purposefully avoids a specific corner and that he must have some problem with this guy who always sits there. When Robb asks, Theon shrugs once.

"He shared the cell with me before you," he says, and he’s not smiling as he speaks, but then he doesn’t provide any more information. Robb avoids said former cellmate either - to be honest, he creeps Robb out with the way he stares at the both of them, and he isn’t in a hurry to ever introduce himself.

Then one day he actually sees him approaching Theon - he says something under his breath and Theon reacts by turning his back and running back to their bunks before their time outside is up, and then he doesn’t get anything to eat or talk to anyone throughout the day.

When that night he wakes up screaming, Robb doesn’t even think before getting out of his bunk and walking up the ladder to Theon’s - he shakes him awake before a guard arrives and he can barely see clearly when his only light source is at the end of the corridor, but he’s pretty sure that Theon’s face is covered in cold sweat and that he’s looking at him half as if he’s grateful and half as if he’s ashamed.

"Sorry," he says after taking in a couple of deep breaths. “You can go back to sleep, I won’t wake you up again."

"Why, because you’re not going back to it?"

"Like hell," Theon agrees. “Really. I’ll be fine."

"You’re shaking all over," Robb says, starting to put two and two together.

"Well, it’s fucking cold in here."

It’s really not, Robb thinks.

"If that’s the problem - well. Body heat?" Robb doesn’t even know why he suggests it, but then Theon’s eyes go wide as he stares back up at him.

"Body heat," he replies almost as if he can’t believe that.

"Just if you want."

It takes maybe a minute, but then Theon’s shoulders lose tension as he drops back down against the mattress. “If it doesn’t bother you." He turns on his side, giving Robb his back as if he doesn’t care either way.

Robb moves onto the bunk and goes to put himself between Theon and the wall, forcing him to turn again. He throws an arm around his waist, and he doesn’t expect it when Theon’s fingers close around his in a crushing grip.

Unexpected doesn’t mean unwanted, though, and he doesn’t move at all until they’re both asleep.


	18. asoiaf; robb/theon; pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is bad at trading and Theon isn't much better at being a pirate, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [Princekraken](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Princekraken/pseuds/Princekraken), who wanted a pirates AU. Warnings: this is kind of cracky/ridiculous and I'm willing to bet it has more historical errors than sentences, but bear with me here.

So, Robb had in fact been warned - don’t go with a small ship and a small crew, there are pirates raiding that stretch of sea,  _a lot of them_  - but clearly he had still opted to take the shortest route, he had sailed too close to Port Royal and it went wrong. He figures that he’s never going to get his shipment to Mexico and that it’s the end of his time in the trading business, though right now he’s more worried about actually  _surviving_  this business, and the fact that the pirate ship that ran in front of his own is named  _Sea Bitch_  is doing exactly nothing to help his mood.

At least the captain didn’t have him killed on the spot and said that they should  _discuss matters_ , and so that’s how he’s sitting on a small bed in a cabin that looks kind of second-class staring in front of said captain, who is also a lot younger than most pirates he’s seen in his life.

"So," he starts, grinning at Robb as if he’s laughing at his own private joke, “it seems to me like you’re pretty fucking bad at this trading business - no one ever passes here, they know they won’t be left alone."

"Well," Robb replies, figuring that he doesn’t have that much to lose, “seems to me like you’re not that great at this raiding ships business either, since you’re manning a place no one  _ever passes by_ and I think that my second mate’s cabin was better than yours."

The grin falls from the man’s face, and then he shrugs. “At least you’re not stupid," he says, sounding almost resigned. “What can you do, I didn’t even want to do this in the first place."

"Me neither," Robb shrugs. “Family business, but I really couldn’t care less for trading. Something tells me we have at least one thing in common."

The grin comes back on the man’s face again, his dark eyes glinting in what sunlight comes in from the window. “Something tells you right. Also your tea is bloody useless and of course you weren’t carrying money, so this raid was a bust anyway."

"Considering that your stupid crew threw it into the sea, I think we’re even, aren’t we?"

The captain snorts without trying to deny it, and then he moves even closer - there are barely inches between them now.

"You know what, you’re definitely better company than anyone on this bloody ship right now. And from what I gather you’re not planning on going back to England any time soon. Port Royal isn’t far. I could buy you a round or two, since I  _threw your precious tea into the ocean._ ”

Robb stares into the man’s dark eyes and decides that saying no right now would be the most stupid idea he’s ever had. “As long as I actually know who I’m talking to," he answers.

"Theon Greyjoy _._ Not at your service, as you probably gathered."

"Robb Stark," he answers as Theon unchains him. “And I’m not at yours either, even if you might have the upper hand here."

Theon laughs again, a row of pearly white teeth showing, and  _that_ ’s strange because Robb hasn’t seen anyone around here who actually  _had_  them all, let alone kept so well, but - it’s a nice smile, he thinks.

"Robb then. I shall hope that we might find a way to mutually solve this to our satisfaction, then."

Robb thinks that it won’t be too hard at all.


	19. asoiaf; robb/theon; bookshop au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb isn't regretting at all the moment he decided to check out the newly opened book store while searching for Sansa's birthday gift and Theon owns said shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally written for [QueenAsha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAsha/pseuds/QueenAsha) who wanted a bookshop AU - also there's kind of merciless 50 Shades bashing.

“Something tells me that you’re in physical pain at the idea of buying that piece of crap, or am I wrong?”

_No_ , Robb thinks as he turns to his left, finding himself face to face with the small bookshop’s owner (most probably) and desperately trying to not die of embarrassment because of the  _Fifty Shades of Gray_  copy he’s holding in his hands - well, Sansa asked for that specifically for her birthday and Robb had thought that getting it for her  _maybe_  would have made her realize how horrible of a book is it. Thing is, considering that the shop owner is not only about his age but also incredibly attractive and most probably has a much better taste than that crap passed for erotica, he really doesn’t want to come off as someone who actually spends money on it - not to someone whose number he’d really like to have before leaving the store.

“It’s for my sister, actually - damn, I really don’t want to get her this,” he admits, “but she just won’t stop asking for it - so yeah. I suppose I’m feeling  _physical pain_.”

The owner gives him a wicked smile that makes Robb go weak in the knees before winking at him again and going towards a shelf - he searches for a bit, then goes back to Robb handing him a brand new copy of  _Tropic of Cancer._  

“If your sister really wants to read some porn, at least it should be good writing.”

“You know what, you’re right.” Robb puts the  _Fifty Shades_  copy back where it is and walks towards the check-out - he puts a couple of used books he grabbed for himself on top of the pile.

Well, it seems like the extremely hot owner is very pleased with Robb’s choice of Tolkien, Vonnegut and random-anthology-of-nineteenth-century-French-poets.

“Let me tell you, you have better taste than your sister. For that I might even throw you another one for free.”

“I’d be happier if you threw me your number,” Robb replies before his brain can catch up with his head and he feels his cheeks go red. But he doesn’t get a fuck off in return.

He gets an extremely old and battered copy of - oh dear,  _Delta of Venus_  - Robb thinks he’s blushing even harder, and on the first page there’s a number scribbled in pen, with  _Theon_  written over it.

Robb smiles and takes the book before grabbing a small notebook he kept in his pocket - he rips a piece of paper and writes his own name and number on it.

“I’ll call you,” he says as Theon hands him his purchases in a nice paper bag - it has the bookshop’s logo on the front (Robb will ask him why a kraken, at some point). 

“I’m counting on it,” Theon winks again, and Robb decides that going for the small, newly-opened shop rather than the huge retail chain bookshop near home that he’s always bought books at until now might just turn out to be the best idea he’s ever had.


	20. asoiaf; robb/theon; supernatural AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is a hunter and Theon hadn't exactly asked to become a vampire, but it doesn't necessarily have to end badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [QueenWithABeeThrone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone) who wanted an AU where one of them was a hunter and the other a supernatural entity.

"If I tell you that I didn’t want to turn, it’s not going to save my ass, right?"

Robb doesn’t lower his bloody machete, but since the vampire - no, he thinks,  _Theon Greyjoy_  - did actually help him kill his sire even if he looks on the far bad side of malnourished, maybe he should at least hear him out.

"Tell me more then," Robb says, lowering his weapon on second thought - seriously, Theon doesn’t look like someone who could put on a fight right now.

"How long have I been missing?"

"Three months," Robb answers.

"Figures. I thought it had been longer. Well, he forced me to turn maybe a couple of weeks in, and I fed exactly five times since then." He looks down at his filthy clothes and shakes his head in what looks like self-deprecation. “I think you can imagine the rest."

Robb shudders - yes, he’s seen enough of  _the rest_  and of all the other victims of Bolton’s.

"I never asked for this," Theon sighs. “And - I know I can’t turn back now, but I wouldn’t - I wouldn’t fucking kill people. Figures. First time in my life that I have things sorted out and a job I like and I end up like  _this._ ”

"Wait, it was at the aquarium?"

"How do you know?"

"I don’t do this job half-assed. I looked into the missing victims’ files."  _And your father slammed the door in my face_ , he doesn’t say. But from the way Theon is looking at him, it looks like he can imagine that.

Actually, Robb had tried twice, and from what he knows, if he leaves Theon free at most he’ll go back to an empty apartment, no job anymore and a hunger for blood he didn’t ask for. Then he remembers something else from the file that he had hacked from the local police’s database. For a moment, he misses Jon so badly it hurts, but he can’t go and blame his brother for wanting out of hunting.

"I also know you won a few archery competitions, or didn’t you?"

"How - what that in my fucking file?"

"Yeah, well, what I meant is that you must have good aim, don’t you?"

"… yes? Of course I had."

"All right. Listen, this job - mine, I mean - it’s something that is best done in pairs. And my brother quit a while ago. Let’s say that you could come with me to my motel, get a shower, eat a couple of raw steaks before we go find a blood bank. And after that maybe you could stick to animals. Then - I know a couple of guys who live three or four states from here. Family friends." Robb prays that Davos and Stannis won’t have his head for this, but he’s pretty sure that Davos would be okay with it, and if he is, then Stannis automatically would follow. “We can stay there a bit, I can give you a run-down of how to do this."

"And then we’d go play good cop and bad cop?" Theon asks, sounding incredulous.

"Why not? Doesn’t seem to me like we’d be doing much better on our own. And I  _could_  use a hunting partner with superhuman strenght."

"As if there’s much of it right now," Theon mutters, but then he looks back up at Robb again, looking almost hopeful. “You - you meant that?"

Robb wipes his bloody hands on his plaid shirt - fuck, another ruined one, but he’s half sure that putting fresh blood in front of a vampire on the brink of starvation is a bad idea.

"Sure I meant it. I think I could do a lot worse than you and I’m not going to cut your head when you didn’t even ask for it."

He holds out his more or less clean hand, and as Theon grins at him and takes it, Robb can’t help thinking that it’s a very nice smile.

He also feels that he’s not going to regret this.


	21. asoiaf; robb/theon; bon jovi concert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon has to come to terms with not hating Bon Jovi as much as he thinks he should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [mockyrfears](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mockyrfears), who wanted theon/robb at a BJ concert getting sappy over _Always_. This is like the fluffiest fluff that ever fluffed. Also I actually went to a BJ concert four days ago so I should probably specify that me = Robb in this.

So, Theon had been planning to be  _cool_  during this thing. Because there are things that  _do_  in fact affect your reputation, and he’s not going to pass for someone who likes Bon Jovi if he can help it. Bon Jovi it’s exactly the stuff you’re  _not_  supposed to like if you’re hoping to pass for a half-serious person where he comes from, and he’s pretty sure that if his brothers knew that he actually has both  _Keep the Faith_  and  _These Days_  - like, the complete records - on his mp3 player they’d never speak to him again. He justifies himself because those two records were objectively not bad, but it doesn’t change the basic point, which is that he  _does not_  like Bon Jovi. Nope. (Knowing  _Bed of Roses_  by heart means nothing.)

And if he’s fucking standing in the damned pit at a stupid Bon Jovi concert right now it’s just because it was Robb’s birthday present - because Robb never went out of his way to hide that he loves that fucking band (that might be one of the reasons why most of Theon’s family hates him, thinking about it), and Theon had wanted to give him something nice for  _reasons_ , and - he knew that possible first row at a Bon Jovi gig would have made Robb beyond ecstatic. So he has a perfectly valid excuse, and until now he’s held his own pretty decently - right, he  _did not_ , in fact, belt out lyrics during fucking  _Livin’ on a Prayer_  (while Robb has spent the previous three hours belting out lyrics even to the fucking new record - Theon is sure that half of the audience didn’t even bother with it). Fine, he might have sang a bit during  _Wanted Dead or Alive_ , but then again that’s  _not_  a lame-ass song, so.

He’s also not sure of how he survived not singing along while being in second row, but  _details._

Anyway, he’s being proud of himself for being this close to getting out of this with his dignity intact and enough pictures to blackmail Robb for eternity (because fine, he’s not gonna get jealous of Robb’s ridiculous mancrush on Jon Bon Jovi, but it doesn’t mean he can’t tease him for it), and Robb looks beyond ecstatic as he shouts for the encore, so it’s all good.

Until the encore actually happens and he hears the first fucking chords and  _no._  No no no. He probably was the only one hoping that it wouldn’t get played, but it  _does_ , and when the entire pit erupts into screams he knows that he’s not getting out of it.

Fucking  _Always_ , he thinks, and then - then Robb’s hand grabs his in plain view and he knows, right that moment, that he’s never going to get out of this with his dignity intact.

Fine, so there’s the part where after they had a pretty bad row a few months ago (Theon’s dad’s fault, mostly, as usual) and it had looked as if Theon  _really_  had fucked up there, he  _might_  have gone and made Robb a mixtape that had that stupid fucking song as the last track, and  _maybe_  he had written down that piece just before the bridge that started with  _if you told me to cry for you I could._ And the thing is that it had fucking worked, so it’s not like he has to complain about  _that_  specifically, but now the first refrain has started and Robb is looking at him in that way that makes Theon’s knees feel like jelly every-fucking-time. He doesn’t even think before he tugs on Robb’s hand and drags him closer, and so maybe Robb feels like a furnace under his band shirt and he fits perfectly against his side. So maybe he spends the entire second stanza thinking about the miserable two weeks he had spent looking at the things of Robb’s that still were around his room. Maybe a tear or two falls down when the song goes into the part he had written down on that fucking mixtape.

So maybe by the time the bridge has long passed and he hears  _we’ll find a place where the sun still shines_  he thinks fuck it, and so he kisses Robb right in the middle of the pit, and when he hears a lot of people whistling he knows that most of this stadium probably just saw them on the screens behind the stage, but Robb is kissing him back very enthusiastically so he really doesn’t care. (And for all Theon spends his time teasing Robb about his mancrush’s voice not being what it used to be, fucking Jon Bon Jovi  _can_  still carry the darned tune.)

So they break the kiss during the last refrain and Robb is openly crying like the sap he is, and his own eyes feel kind of wet as Robb’s hand wraps around his again, and if they spend the rest of the song pressed to each others’ side while Theon wipes frantically at his eyes, well, he figures that mostly everyone else attending is in the exact same position.

"Don’t ever pretend you don’t like this from now on," Robb shouts at him over the last solo, and he’s grinning so hard that it looks as if he might burst from it.

"You got me," Theon admits to himself, and he holds Robb’s hand throughout the rest of it.

Incidentally, the last song is  _Bed of Roses._

Theon doesn’t even try to resist the temptation and sings along to it - after all, it’s still a whole fucking lot better than bloody  _Always._

He knows he’s making a poor job of pretending to hang on to the last straws of his dignity, but - he can’t deny that it was completely worth every second of it.


	22. asoiaf; robb/theon + rickon; modern au h/c

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is patching Theon up and Rickon has very precise ideas of what Robb should do to make Theon feel better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [noseinanovel](http://noseinanovel.tumblr.com); the prompt was AU theon/robb h/c, either silly or serious. It started serious and then it became sort of silly but that's what happens when I run with prompts. Rickon guest stars.

When his cellphone beeps twice, Robb takes it carelessly wondering why he’s getting texts at midnight on Easter break – hopefully it’s just Sansa telling him that the entire family minus Robb and Rickon arrived safely at their mom’s family home for the holidays. Robb hasn’t gone because Rickon had caught some kind of bug and they didn’t want to risk getting it worse by taking him on a long car trip and Robb had volunteered to keep an eye on him and stay behind. He had kind of been hoping that Theon might drop by more, since they have the house pretty much to themselves and his brother isn’t really a handful, not when he’s still half-sick and not running everywhere, but he hasn’t answered until now. As it is, Robb was enjoying reading his novel in blissful silence (which almost never is an occurrence at his house).

He reads the text. It’s Theon.

_Mind if I drop by now?_

… well, that’s weird. Theon has shown up unannounced more than once, but never this late.

_Sure – is there some problem?_

He never gets an answer because the doorbell rings instead.

He opens the door to find himself in front of Theon, who’s looking down at the ground and sporting a bruise on the side of his face that goes from cheekbone to just under the corner of his mouth along with a still bleeding split bottom lip.

“What the _hell_?” Robb asks before dragging Theon in. “Get on the sofa, I’m going to grab some ice and the first aid kit.” Theon doesn’t object once and Robb doesn’t like this at-fucking-all. When he comes back, he’s sitting on the sofa and still looking down at his hands.

“Tell me that you fell down the stairs and I’m going to laugh in your face, and I don’t exactly feel like laughing right now.”

“If only,” Theon sighs. “No. Well, it’s actually half of it.”

“What?”

“Same argument with my dad again. The one about how I’m not going to do what he wants after we graduate. I was more pissed than usual, ran down the stairs to get out as soon as possible, I missed the last one and I fucking landed face down on the ground. Really. That was the lip.”

He doesn’t sound like he’s lying and Robb would know by now.

“Fine. So, the rest?”

“Yeah, well, I ran into Bolton while I was coming here. He was hanging out with some idiotic friends of his at that park near my house and he still hasn’t understood that I don’t want anything to do with him or them.”

“And he did that to you?”

“He wanted to have a quickie in his car and I told him to go fuck himself, how do you think that he reacted? Hell, I got off light.”

“Jesus,” Robb mutters while he disinfects the cut on the lip as Theon holds the ice pack to his face, and Robb is about to tell him to just crash in his room after they’re done.

“What happened to him?”

They both turn left at once – and why the hell would Rickon be awake at this hour in the night? He’s staring at them in his pajamas on the doorstep to the living room, looking half curious and half worried.

“Why are you up?” Robb asks instead, deflecting. “Do you feel weird?”

“No, I wanted water,” Rickon replies calmly. Right. The water is low enough in the fridge for a six year old to get a bottle without much effort. “What happened to him?”

“I fell down the stairs,” Theon says before Robb can try to deflect the conversation again. “I’m fine, squirt.”

“Come on, go back to bed. I can get the water for you,” Robb says then.

“Robb, you should kiss it better.”

For a moment, there’s utter silence.

“What?” Theon replies, sounding baffled.

“It looks like it hurts. You kiss it better, when it happens.”

Robb spends a moment to wish his mother had stopped with the kissing it better bullshit after Sansa was born, and then realizes that his brother is pretty much the most stubborn person he knows – who knows how he’ll be when he grows up. Probably he’ll never be refused at a job interview, if Robb guesses right. Point is, he’ll probably stay there awake all night if they don’t do it and he doesn’t have proof of any kissing it better happening in front of his face. So they probably should just do it – hell, it’s not like it can hurt any.

“Fine then.”

“Robb, what –”

“Just go along with it,” Robb whispers before pressing his mouth to Theon’s cheek, at the center of the bruise. It’s cold, but then again Theon had been putting ice against it a moment before. For a moment he’s sure that Theon shivers, but then he figures that he just imagined it.

Then he takes a deep breath and does the same for the lower lip, where the bleeding has just stopped, and – no, he doesn’t imagine it when Theon shivers again and he presses back against the touch for a moment before going still again.

_Well then_ , he thinks, _I wasn’t expecting that_. Except that he has no problems whatsoever with it.

“Done,” he says, hoping that he sounds cheerful enough. “Do you feel any better?”

“Uh, sure,” Theon replies, convincingly enough.

Rickon nods at the two of them before stalking towards the kitchen and Robb figures that he’s going to get the water himself after all. Right now, he has another thing on his hands.

“Well, uh, that was –” Theon starts, but Robb shakes his head and presses the tip of his finger to his mouth.

“That was _interesting_ ,” Robb replies. “And I’m not entirely sure that we shouldn’t try it again just to be sure.”

“We shouldn’t try _what_ again?”

“Kissing it better, you idiot. Unless you have a problem with it, but something tells me that you don’t, and maybe I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”

Theon stares at him with the face of someone who can’t possibly fathom what’s happening, but then his mouth curls up in a shaky grin that is not his usual ‘everything’s fine’ smile. “If you really insist, I’m not above trying it. Though maybe we should move it to your room?”

“In a moment,” Robb says before he kisses him again, slow and keeping it lips against lips but not the peck that he gave him before – he makes sure that this can pass for a real kiss and puts a hand on the back of Theon’s neck before he moves back, his fingertips drawing circles in the spot just below the hairline.

“ _That_ worked better,” Theon croaks a moment later. He’s trying to sound smug but not exactly managing it. Robb reaches down, finds one of his hands and threads his fingers around Theon’s, tugging him up.

“Well, I can put some more effort in it upstairs.”

Theon follows at once, the ice pack falling forgotten on the sofa, and as they go upstairs, Robb decides that he had underestimated the whole kissing it better deal. He thinks he intends to prove himself extremely good at it.

He also figures that no one will know if tomorrow he makes his brother not too many of those ridiculous Nutella pancakes that he likes, even if technically he shouldn’t eat anything too heavy, but then again he kind of owes him, doesn’t he?

End.


	23. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au; crack; pg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon eats the last gummy bear and Robb isn't pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally written for [samiferist](http://samiferist.tumblr.com); pretty much all that it says on the tin. Don't take this seriously ever.

“It was the last one,” Robb says for the third time, and Theon is about to lose his fucking mind.

“Stark. When I arrived here, that bag was half full. I ate exactly  _ten_. You ate all the rest. How are you this hung up about me eating the last one? So you got the second-to-last. So what?”

“But – but it was the  _last one_  and it was the last bag!”

Theon sighs and makes a mental note to never, ever get in between Robb Stark and the last gummy bear in the last bag. He doesn’t even like the damn things much, for fuck’s sake – he just was hungry and reached for one without even thinking about it, and now Robb looks like sadness incarnated. Considering the face Robb was born with, it’s making Theon feel like the worst person on the face of this planet, which is entirely ridiculous because, well,  _gummy bears._  

“Want to bet that I can take your mind off this heinous crime I just committed?” Theon asks then, and before Robb can reply, he’s kissing him stupid against the sofa, their books and the empty bag of gummy bears falling to the ground.

Robb, thankfully, forgets about the bears entirely, at least for the moment.

—

They end up falling asleep on Robb’s sofa and when Theon wakes up, he sees that it’s eleven PM – so they’ve been out for three hours or so. Well, Robb is still out, his hands grabbing at Theon’s hips, and Theon is this tempted to just go back to sleep, when as he looks out of the window he sees that the convenience store in front of Robb’s place is still open.

He sighs and disentangles himself from Robb’s octopus-like grip and grabs his shirt and a ten pounds note from his wallet, then puts on his shoes and hopes that Robb will at least fucking appreciate the effort as he drags himself down the stairs and to the store – at least he has the keys, good thing that.

When he gets there, he buys all the gummy bears bags that he can buy with ten pounds and he shrugs when the owner looks at him as if he’s completely insane – then again, no one with a bit of functioning brains would actually buy eight gummy bears bags at once. 

He brings his purchases back up to the first floor where Robb is still passed out and he decides that he’s not going to wait until tomorrow morning, so he grabs his shoulder and shakes it until he wakes up.

“What –” Robb starts, sounding still half-asleep.

“Rise, shine and get yourself a fucking stomachache,” Theon tells him as he thrusts the plastic bag into Robb’s hands. “Hopefully I’ll be able to eat  _some_  of these, if you graciously agree to it.”

Robb is grinning as he looks down at the bag’s content.

“You’re such an idiot,” he says fondly, and then he pushes the bag on the ground before grabbing Theon’s shoulders and dragging him back on the sofa.

 Theon has absolutely nothing against this turn of events.


	24. asoiaf; robb/theon, modern au, h/c-ish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Seriously? How do you expect to cook an entire dinner with a sprained wrist?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the same whump meme as the previous chapter; [dijun]() wanted throbb + "How do you expect to _____ with a sprained _____?"
> 
> This obviously ended up being ridiculous fluff.

Proving – without wanting to – Robb’s point, Theon startles and the pan he had been holding precariously in his left hand falls on the ground, missing his foot by inches.

What is Robb doing  _here_ anyway?

“What – how –”

“Your sister called me,” Robb says before leaning down to grab the pan and put it back on the table.

“Asha  _called you_.”

“Yes. She said that you obviously couldn’t be reasoned with and since you weren’t going to listen to her she might as well ask me to try, and for once I’ll have to agree with her.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You’re right-handed.”

“Well, my mom’s birthday dinner isn’t going to cook itself and I doubt anyone else is up for it,  _her_  especially. So how about you leave me to it?”

“Yeah, sure, how about I leave you to do it so the kitchen sets itself on fire when you get something wrong or hurt yourself further?” Robb rolls his eyes, but then he looks back at him and there’s something so very soft in his stare, and Theon doesn’t really need distractions right now.

“Robb –”

“I  _know_  that you want to make it good, especially since for once your dick of a father isn’t around to ruin it, but that doesn’t mean you have to go and be an idiot about it.”

“Right, so what’s your plan?”

Robb stares down at his right hand before grabbing his arm and dragging him to the nearest seat – Theon lets him do it because he’s entirely too out of his depth here. Then he helps himself to Theon’s refrigerator, takes an ice pack out and puts it over his wrist.

“Now, you’re going to keep it there because I can see that it’s more swollen than it was yesterday from under that bandage. Then you’re going to tell me what to do and I’m going to worry about cooking.”

“Robb, you can’t cook.”

“No, but if I do exactly what you tell me to do it can’t be that hard, can it?”

Right. It probably wouldn’t. And the way Robb is looking down at him, he’s not going to back down anytime soon.

“Fine, fine, you win. Though if you really want to, I guess you should stay for dinner? I mean. It’s just –”

“The small part of your family that coincidentally doesn’t hate my guts, right?”

“I hate my sister.”

“No you don’t,” Robb replies with entirely too much cheerfulness before leaning down, kissing the corner of his mouth and moving away.

“Hey, what’s with the teasing now?”

“If I start doing that for real no one’s definitely cooking any dinner anytime soon and you know that. So, what do I do?”

Right. He does have a point. Then again, if he stays for dinner he’s probably going to stay the night, which means they’re going to have time for  _real_ kissing.

“How about you take the fish out of the fridge first?”

As Robb does, he can’t help grinning even if his wrist is hurting like a bitch now that he thinks about it. Then he grins wider when he realizes that this arrangement means that he gets to stare at Robb’s back for three hours non-stop, and the bastard – who probably knew that – has worn especially tight jeans for the occasion.

Maybe he’ll even admit to Asha that she was right when she undoubtedly brags about having called the reinforcements the moment she gets here – sure as hell he’s not going to complain anytime soon.


	25. asoiaf; robb/theon, superhero AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is the masked superhero that Westeros deserves. Theon wants to punch himself for not having figured it out earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> always for the aforementioned character meme. [QueenWithABeeThrone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/) left me Robb/Theon + Lois Lane, whose prompt was 'one of them has a secret superhero identity'. More ridiculous fluff for everyone, yey.

The next time  _anyone_  calls him an idiot, Theon will agree with them without even blinking once. If it’s his sister, she’ll probably have a crack out of it. And he’ll deserve it, because for fuck’s sake, how  _stupid_  could he be not to realize it? Actually, how did he even realize it  _now_  - ah, yes, of course, he’s realizing it just now because the  _most polite vigilante the city of King’s Landing ever had_ according to all the gossip sites,  _the Young Wolf_  according to his dumb secret identity name and  _motherfucking Robb Stark_  now that Theon realizes it, is currently carrying him like a damsel in distress while  _running over a few rooftops,_ and Theon isn’t so dumb not to recognize how the guy’s body feels. Considering that he falls asleep next to it at least three days each week. Never mind that he’s been trying to write a story about the guy for six months and he never suspected he could be his fucking  _best friend since they were five._  Never mind that now that Robb has oh so gallantly saved his ass from fucking Ramsay Bolton - he’s never, ever trying to write a story about a mafia family in his spare time in his life from now on - he’s jumping from a building six floors high.

The moment Robb’s feet hit the ground, Theon can’t resist anymore, and maybe he should have waited for Robb to put him down after letting go of the shield he’s carrying which is also covering him, but he really. Can’t. Fucking. Wait.

"You know, for  _telling me everything_ , you surely missed the information that might have gained me an exclusive interview,  _Robb_ ,” Theon tells him, and he feels Robb going rigid for a minute. Then Robb shakes his head and Theon feels authorized to reach out and take the gray cowl off his face - red hair comes spilling from under it. Robb looks entirely too sheepish, as far a Theon is concerned.

"Er, sorry? But. You know. Secret identity and all."

Theon rolls his eyes. “You know I would have quit with the newspaper story if you had wanted to, don’t you?”

"I didn’t particularly mind," Robb replies, his cheeks going slightly pinker in the faint light coming in from the street lamp. "And I like your style. Also, it’s all good press."

"You don’t  _need_  good press, you idiot. You’re the only superhero on this earth who doesn’t have one word of bad press. I should have realized it just from that. And oh god, why haven’t you put me down already?”

Fine, he has a sprained ankle, but there’s a limit to everything.

Robb smirks. “Who says I want to put you down?”

Right, so maybe when Theon writes his next article about this, he’s  _not_  going to say that he kissed Robb stupid for entirely too long while Robb was  _still_  holding him up like some ridiculous Disney princess, but it’s not like people have to know about that specific part. And Robb should better comply without blinking if Theon asks him to wear the uniform in bed next time they see each other on a more proper date.


	26. asoiaf; robb/theon + robb/talisa + theon/talisa; accidentally dating the same person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where it turns out that Robb's one night stand isn't single and Robb feels terrible about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally written on tumblr when I decided I was going to take fic prompts on my birthday; the original prompt was _a modern au throbb where Theon and Robb meet when they find out they're dating the same girl?_. this might have been inspired by [this thing here](http://www.brobible.com/life/article/epic-morning-after-note/). No regrets.

Thing is, Robb doesn’t usually do one night stands.

He’s only gone for it now because he just broke up with Jeyne after three years, and he  _really_ felt like going out and have some fun for a change, and clearly he’s done it wrong since this is the fifth time he actually sees the girl he hooked up with. And until now everything’s gone pretty well – Talisa is exactly the opposite of Jeyne, she’s fun to hang out with and they’ve had some damn nice sex. It’s nothing serious, but it’s been good, and so when they ended up at her place, Robb hadn’t really thought much of it. They’ve been at his, after all. It’s all in good fun.

Then he walks into the bathroom in the middle of the night and he realizes  _why_  he doesn’t do one night stands, or  _five_  night stands. 

There’s a men’s razor on the sink. And two toothbrushes.  _Damn._  He uses the bathroom, then heads for the living room – which he hasn’t even glanced at while they tumbled inside – and finds a picture of Talisa with a guy in a  _very_  affectionate position. The guy is also pretty hot now that Robb pays attention to him – dark eyes, dark hair, a  _very_  nice smile.

He goes to the kitchen and finds another similar one on the fridge.

He grabs it and turns it on the back.  _Theon & Talisa_, _someplaceinspainhecannotreadbecausethepenmanshipisatrocious_ , and the date is… a month ago?

On cue, Talisa’s cellphone rings once. It’s on the kitchen table. Robb swears to himself that he _won’t_  look further if the name of the caller – or texter – is anything other than Theon.

It’s  _Theon_.

Robb feels like a creeper as he opens up the text.

He reads it, and glances at the previous conversation, and – no, they’re definitely not broken up. And Theon’s outside England for work or something. He just sent her a picture of some square in a German city and written something like  _you should have come with me, the night clubs are wild here._

Fuck.

It’s not like he’s feeling  _guilty_  about this – how was he supposed to know? – but damn it, what is he supposed to do now? He contemplates waking her up and asking for explanations, but that would mean admitting that actually read her private texts. He marks the text as unread and puts the phone back where he found it, then thinks back on it and saves Theon’s number just in case.

In that conversation Theon said he’d be back in a few days, so Robb supposes that Talisa is going to conveniently break up with him tomorrow or sometime soon. And he’s not going to protest it for a moment, but it’s not like he wants to wait for her to do it and then call the poor bastard.

_Well then_ , maybe he has an idea. He finds the backpack he left at the entrance, grabs a notebook that he had with him and tears away a small piece of paper. He fishes for a pen in the backpack and finds it, then thinks about it for a moment and writes down on the piece of paper.  
  


_To Theon: this is probably going to sound incredibly awkward and I’m honestly really sorry about this, but – I just slept with your girlfriend. She didn’t tell me she had a boyfriend. I found out by chance. Sorry to tell you like this but I’d have wanted to know if I were you. Robb_

  
He thinks about it some more, then writes down his number as well in case the poor guy wants some confirmation in person. Then he finds some tape in a kitchen drawer, goes back to the bathroom and sticks the note under the toilet seat. If sharing a house with his mother and two sisters first and a long-time girlfriend later taught him anything, it’s that women will rarely want to see the seat up. And that they will argue with you about who didn’t put it back down.

Then he goes back to bed and tries to force himself to sleep.

The morning after, Talisa  _obviously_  tells him that it’s been fun and all but she wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. Robb agrees and tells her no hard feelings, it’s the same for him.

He leaves her house and  _really_  hopes that when she cleans the bathroom, because she  _will_ after another guy used it, she ignores the toilet seat.

Four days later, his cellphone rings while he’s having dinner on his lonesome in front of his television.

And it’s  _Theon_ ’s number.

“Hello?” He answers cautiously.

  
“Uh. Robb, right?”  
  
“Yeah. Theon, I suppose?”  
  
“You suppose right. Well, uhm, I – I just wanted to tell you that – I appreciated the note? I mean, I  _didn’t_ , but yeah. I’d have wanted to know."  
  
“I’m – I’m just sorry. She didn’t tell me at all and –”  
  
“No, no, don’t be. Really, I suppose it’s better that it went like this. Even if – well. I thought she was taking it  _somewhat_  seriously.”  
  
“I guess it’s over now, isn’t it?”  
  
“You guess right. Then again – I have to get out of England once each month, more or less. How do I know that you were only the first who realized she wasn’t single or who told me? I figured it was better to just end it. Anyway. That was it.”  
  
The thing is – the guy sounds  _beat_. And who wouldn’t be, after finding out that you girlfriend has cheated on you maybe more than once without you even suspecting?

It’s still eight in the evening.

Why the fuck not.  
  
“Hey, thing is – I only slept with her because I was looking for some fun after a bad break-up. And – now I feel like shit about it. So – I was wondering – maybe you want to drink on that?”

For a moment, no answer comes.

Then.

“You know, why the hell not.”

They exchange information and settle on a pub that they both know – for a coincidence, they actually live somewhat nearby and the pub is in the middle of the road. Robb is there in ten minutes after he leaves the house. He waits another five before Theon shows up – he recognizes him from the picture. And  _damn_ , the guy isn’t handsome just on picture. Sure, he _looks_  beat, he has dark bags under his eyes and he’s wearing clothes one size too big, but when he recognizes him (from the description Robb gave him before) and gives him a small, sort of self-deprecating smile, Robb thinks  _damn why would she even cheat on this guy_.

“Hey,” he says, holding out his hand. “Sorry about the circumstances.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I suppose she could have slept with someone less considerate. So, that drink?”  
  
“On me, though.  _I_  did sleep with your girlfriend, after all.  
  
“How  _nice_  of you,” Theon answers, and he smiles for real at that.

In the next couple of hours, Robb learns that Talisa is, in fact, an idiot. Thing is, it’s not that Theon is  _hot_ , because he is. But – it’s also everything else. Fine, he’s kind of an ass and has a sense of humor that’s definitely not for all tastes, but it’s to Robb’s and after the second beer he’s already decided that this guy cracks him up in all the good ways. He’s interesting to talk to, they like the same bands – heck, they both were at the last Springsteen concert in London –, they don’t stop talking one second and after the third beer they end up catching some new Bruce Willis movie which they both find really endearingly dumb. By the time they’re out of the cinema, Robb is drunk enough to actually go for it, because damn if he doesn’t like  _Theon_  a lot better than he liked Talisa.

“Listen, this probably sounds even more ridiculous, but do you think you might want to do this again? Because I had fun tonight,” he says, and for a moment Theon’s eyes go maybe a bit too wide, but then he grins and damn it but he does have the loveliest smile,  _when_  he actually goes for it.

“Actually, I had to go back to Germany for work in a couple weeks. Two days plus the week-end. And I had bought tickets for her too without asking first – it was supposed to be a surprise or _something_  since she always said I never did anything  _romantic_. So – now I have a spare ticket.”

“Okay. And?”

“How about  _you_  come with me?”

“… Seriously?”

“Robb, I’m pretty sure I like you more than I’ve liked the last five people I dated. Went out with. _Whatever._  So, what do you say?”

A reasonable person would have said,  _ask me in a week after we see each other every day._

But Robb figures that it’s overrated.

“You know what, I haven’t been to Germany in years and I needed an excuse to brush up on the language. Sure. Just tell me when.”

Theon grins fully at him again and Robb decides that he’s totally not regretting this.

 

End.


	27. asoiaf; robb/theon + grey wind; fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb and Theon have a moment with Robb's brand new pet direwolf. Theon isn't convinced until he actually is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on tumblr for the birthday prompts extravaganza; anon wanted _something with robb, theon, and baby grey wind? i think that would be the cutest thing_. This.. really just follows the prompt, lol.

“You know, he’s not going to bite you.”

“He’s a  _direwolf_ , excuse me if I’m taking precautions.”

“Don’t be an idiot and come closer. He’s not.”

Theon  _really_  would like to pass on it, but – well. There’s the part where he was never much good at telling Robb  _no_ , which is why he settles on hoping that Robb  _really_  is right and comes closer to the bed where Robb is currently petting that small bundle of deadly fur they found on the road a few days ago.

Well, at least Grey Wind  _doesn’t_  growl at once the moment Theon cautiously sits down. Definitely an improvement over all of his brothers and sisters except for Sansa’s wolf. Hell, if Theon didn’t know  _what_  species he is, he might even find the bundle of fur sort of maybe endearing.

If he didn’t know.

“You could also pet him,” Robb suggests a moment later.

“Hells  _no_ ,” Theon replies at once. “I’m really  _not_ , Robb. I touched Jon’s wolf by mistake and he was about to bite my fucking finger off. Small and white and runt of the litter as it is.”

Robb rolls his eyes and doesn’t look fazed at all. “Don’t be an idiot. Jon’s wolf doesn’t like you just because you and Jon keep on bickering all the time and he senses it or something like that, but  _he_  has no reason to.”

“Still, I need my hands intact.”

“Don’t be an idiot, he’s  _not_  going to bite you.”

“And how can you be sure of that?”

“I just  _am_. Try once. If it looks like he might bite you we’ll just never mention it again. How about that?”

And now Robb is giving him that dumb pleading look and –

Right.

_Fine._

“If it happens it’s  _your_  fault, Stark,” Theon sighs before tentatively reaching out and touch Grey Wind’s head with just his fingertips.

And –

Not only Grey Wind doesn’t bite him.

The little deadly ball of fur actually  _pushes up against his hand_.

“What,” Theon blurts out.

“Just do it for real,” Robb sighs, and Theon does, even if he’s entirely not convinced.

He starts petting the direwolf for real and – and the little deadly thing actually  _smiles_  and lets him? He’s too surprised to keep on, and the moment he stops Grey Wind just jumps from Robb’s lap to his, staring up at him as if he’s daring Theon to go on.

“He’s not biting you now, is he?” Robb looks like he’s about to erupt in laughing fits as Theon resignedly starts petting Grey Wind again. Damn, if he was a cat and not a direwolf he’d be purring by now.

“Fine. He’s  _not_ ,” Theon has to admit, and then he wonders, if Robb  _knew_  and if he somehow knows that Jon’s wolf doesn’t like him because  _Jon_  doesn’t like him (which is entirely reciprocated, thank you) that has to mean that they’re somehow connected or – or something weird like that. And if Grey Wind is somehow some extension of Robb and he’s letting himself be cuddled this easily –

“I don’t know why you just went  _crimson_  but I think it’s a conversation we don’t want to have,” Robb calmly says as he starts petting Grey Wind’s other side.

“We don’t,” Theon agrees quickly, and he doesn’t stop running his hands along the back of Grey Wind’s skull.

 

End.


	28. asoiaf; robb/theon + past theon/ramsay barely mentioned; bad pick-up lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon might be really off his game when trying to pick up the hot guy next to him in the bar. Good thing it's not a deal breaker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> always birthday prompts extravaganza; anon wanted _Theon trying to flirt with Robb at a bar being all cocky(when he's actually super nervous) and Robb seeing right through his bullshit and being super amused by it/into it._

Once upon a time, he wouldn’t even have  _thought_  about it. He’d have just walked up to the guy and asked if he wanted a drink. No one would have ever stopped him from asking out a hot guy that didn’t seem to be waiting for a date and who actually looked pretty damn bored by his surroundings.

Of course that was before he tried to flirt with the wrong guy and came out of the experience six months later with a changed phone number, a good number of blows to his self-esteem as far as picking people up went, a sexual harassment lawsuit and a restraining order on said wrong guy.

Then again, the aforementioned hot guy with blue eyes sitting at the counter looks lonely, bored and - well, Theon might have heard him talking to his brother or something on his cellphone before, and he didn’t sound like a psychopath. Well then, he’s just going to try. So he goes and sits down next to him, then clears his throat and on cue, Hot Guy turns towards him.

For a moment, Theon feels lost - who even has eyes this big? They should be fucking illegal -, then he puts on what used to be his best smile for this kind of occasion and prays that he still has it.

“Are you waiting for someone?” He asks, and thankfully the tone comes out just about right - he doesn’t sound like someone afraid that they’ll fuck it up.

“Well, I might and might not,” Hot Guy answers, and while it’s a shit answer and not what Theon had expected, it’s not  _that_  bad of an answer. He can work with it. He didn’t say he was waiting for someone. Maybe he’s just playing hard to get? “Why’s that you want to know?”

And - damn it, he hadn’t thought up a response this far, and then he looks down at the guy’s t-shirt. Who even goes to a bar wearing  _Breaking Bad_  t-shirts? At least he’s seen enough of it, since Asha is fucking addicted to it. Maybe he  _can_  spin it to his satisfaction.

“Well, I’d like to buy a drink to someone whose eyes are bluer than Heisenberg’s crystal,” Theon replies, and he has no fucking clue of how he keeps a straight face through it. To his credit, though, the guy doesn’t laugh in his face. Actually, he looks somewhat  _impressed._

“I’ll give that to you,” Hot Guy answers a moment later, “ _that_  was the most original pick-up line anyone’s ever thrown my way.”

“Does that mean you’re letting me buy you that drink and maybe tell me your name?”

“I didn’t say it was a  _good_  one, but by all means, since it was original I’ll have the drink. You’ll have to put a bit more effort into it if you want the name, too.”

And then the guy  _smirks_  as if he’s incredibly amused by all of this, and damn it but Theon has no clue if he’s into it or not, but hey, it was something. He tells the bartender to get them a whiskey and whatever else Hot Guy wants - he goes from some fruit-cocktail thing with vodka in it that somehow shouldn’t make sense for someone wearing fucking  _Breaking Bad_  t-shirts, but hey, who is he to judge.

“So is there anything I can do to find out that name?”

“I don’t know, depends on how far you’re willing to go. I mean, I don’t go farther than drinks if you’re not a little bit serious.”

And then the guy  _winks_. Well, damn, it’s not doing anything to make him feel somewhat better about this, and why can he only think of the most horrible pick-up lines he ever sprung on people during university?

Fine. Fine, so he’ll go for the only one he ever actually thought was clever.

“Well, you know that Proclaimers song? The one saying they’d walk five hundred miles and then five hundred more?”

“Isn’t that a bit excessive, for someone you just met?”

“Well, I wouldn’t do  _that_  for you as it is. However, I’d sit through an entire Nickleback concert, even if it does look like you have better taste than that.”

Hot Guy stares at him for a moment and then he honestly cracks up with his drink midway to his lips, and damn but he has a  _nice_  smile, doesn’t he?

“You know, that was  _terrible_. But I do have better taste than that.”

“Good - good to know?”

“I should hope. By the way, I’m Robb, and usually just answering  _I’d like to buy you a drink because I think you look nice_  is enough to get me to say yes to it.”

_Shit._  Theon can feel himself going red in the face as Robb takes a sip from his drink, but then he feels fingertips slowly wrapping around his wrist. “That said, I  _do_  appreciate some effort. Even if I don’t even watch  _Breaking Bad._ ”

“ _What_?”

“This is my brother’s actually, I slept at his place yesterday and I forgot to bring a spare. And I should hope you won’t ask for bad pick-up lines in order to tell me  _your_  name.”

“Fuck, no. I’m Theon. And - er, sorry about that?”

“Nah, don’t be. At least you’re creative. So, can  _I_  buy you a drink after this round?”

Theon isn’t nervous at all as he answers that yes, of course he can.

He needs to get a better repertoire, even if he kind of hopes that he won’t need to for a while.

 

End.


	29. asoiaf; robb/theon, haunted/abandoned amusement park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where they break into an abandoned amusement park on Halloween and Theon is nowhere near sure it was a good idea, but there are some perks to the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written back when I was taking Halloween prompts in October - the prompt from [queenwithabeethrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone) was _Robb/Theon, haunted and abandoned amusement park?_. Since all my knowledge about that kinda thing comes from Stephen King have a they-live-in-the-late-Seventies-in-a-small-town-in-the-US-AU. Everything in common with _Joyland_ is probably not coincidental.

“Remind me again why we are doing this?” Robb asks for the tenth time since they left his place.

Theon would like to tell him to shut it, but the thing is that Robb is perfectly right – no one in their sane mind would spend Halloween night dying of cold trying to break into Winterfell’s old abandoned amusement park, lovingly dubbed  _the Dreadfort_  by at least two generations by now.

“Because I’m related to at least two complete idiots and this is a dare? You know, you don’t have to be here.”

“Yeah, well,  _right_ , but I volunteered, didn’t I? Come on, let’s just get this over with.”

Theon turns the hair pin in his left hand again and  _finally_  the lock holding one of the side gates closed opens. Good. He wasn’t looking forward to climbing on the damned fence, that’s for sure.

He’s going to  _kill_  Maron and Rodrik for daring him to do this, and then he’s going to slap himself for having taken on it just because  _they_  always bragged about doing it on Halloween and never following through with it. Robb  _really_  didn’t have to volunteer to go with him, bless him and his  _don’t let your best friend get into stupid shit on his own_  moral code, but as it is, they’re here, it’s freezing and they have to spend one hour inside this godforsaken ruin – the last time someone was here was probably the thirties. It was a carny that definitely didn’t survive the Depression and it  _shows_  – forty years later and they’re probably the first people who bothered stepping foot in it.

“Right. We’re in. Now comes the question, which is the building less likely to collapse where we can just sit and wait it out?”

Robb glances around them – there are a couple of dismissed food stands and a labyrinth of mirrors that looks about to fold on itself.

“Not  _that_  one,” he declares, wrapping his coat tighter around his shoulders. “Let’s just get a move on – there  _has_  to be someplace less run-down.”

Theon shrugs and follows him – they pass the labyrinth and some rollercoasters that also look about to fall off the moment someone touches one of the cars.

And then they’re in what had to be the center of the carny – they stop in a huge circular square, a Ferris wheel in front of them, the haunted house on their right, the tunnel of love in front of it and a tent with  _freak show_  written in capital letters outside the entrance. There’s another dismissed food stand next to the wheel and then what looks like an office – it’s a small house just on the side of the wheel and a  _staff only_  plaque on the door.

“Well, looks like that could be halfway decent,” Robb says before heading for the door and trying it. It opens without much of a fuss, but then –

“Shit,” Robb says as Theon joins him inside, and he can see why – the house is completely empty and it’s even colder inside than on the outside for that matter.

“Yeah,  _shit._  Damn it. You think the tunnel of love might be a better idea?”

“Why, you wanna bring me in for a ride? Sweet of you, but without light I doubt we’d see a thing. Though… wait a moment. Isn’t that a panel?”

Theon fumbles for his torch and hands it to Robb – he points it at what does, in fact, look like a panel.

“So what?”

“So  _you_  are the one whose sister owns a garage and who spends more time with her than with any other relative of his, surely you’ll know how to turn it on if it’s possible?”

“Well,  _in theory_ , Stark, but electricity usually works if you pay the bills, and I doubt anyone has done that in years, but – well. Guess it’d be better with the lights on. Let me have a look.”

He holds out the torch to Robb and takes a better look at the panel. It’s not  _that_  hard of a circuit – hell, no one changed it since the thirties so it’s pretty old shit. He fiddles with the levers a bit, then pushes up the one that should connect the entire thing, and for a moment nothing happens –

Then light appears from outside the house. Right. This place doesn’t even have a lamp.

“… Did that work?”

“Looks like it did. Damn, I should have brought a camera,” Robb says as he steps out, and – Theon can see why. Now the Ferris wheel, the tunnel of love and the haunted house  _look_ functioning, along with a few streetlamps and the sign over the freak show tent. It would make for a kickass photo, sure thing, especially if taken in black and white – it’s still  _very_ creepy altogether, but – it also looks somehow fascinating. Especially in light of the fact that there’s absolutely no one but them around.

“Remind me,” Robb says after a minute or so of silence, “ _why_  did they exactly shut down? I mean, as far as I know carnies were one of the few businesses that did  _not_  go bankrupt back in the thirties.”

“Er, because someone died in here. Or better –  _a lot_  of people died.”

“ _What_?”

“I don’t remember how it went exactly, it’s shit Rodrik used to tell me during summer before I went to bed to make sure I wouldn’t sleep at night, but – far as I know, the last owner was some guy named Bolton whose son was a total psycho. Guy manned the haunted house and apparently he murdered a few people inside it and his dad just moved on the carny and covered him up instead of turning him in like any sane person –  _whatever_. Anyway, when they got here they actually stayed for a while and Bolton the younger didn’t go off the rails until his dad decided that the freak show was a good addition to the entire party. Three months or so pass and a few of the poor shmucks who ended up in said freak show tent end up dead, and – like, the police didn’t really give a shit but it turned out to be bad for business, so Bolton the elder confronts his psycho kid in the haunted house after closure, they come to blows, move some lever that they shouldn’t have moved and then they both died under one of the carts that crushed them to death. Then the police investigated it and they found proof of the rest of the murders, and of course they shut everything down and whoever worked here went to find some other carny. But like, no one ever bothered to get back here and dismantle this shit because in the meantime they started saying there were ghosts in the haunted house. The end.”

“… I don’t think we should get in there of all places. Maybe it turns out they didn’t even clean out the blood,” Robb says, obviously trying to pass it as a joke, but the moment Theon finished saying that, it seemed like the air had turned a few degrees colder and yeah, bad idea.

“As if I want to check if there’s light inside that place other than outside. Shit, how long have we left?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Shit. Hey, fancy going to the tunnel of love for real? Who knows when we’re getting another chance.”

Robb smiles just a bit at that, holding out his right hand. Theon reaches out and takes it, and he doesn’t say  _because it’s not like we can do that in actual parks that aren’t abandoned and it’s not like I can even do this in public_. They’ve been keeping it secret for six months by now and he’s astonished they managed.

“As far as I recall you can’t ride in there without someone making sure everything else works at the start of it. But I appreciate the effort. That said…”

He turns to look at the Ferris wheel.

“Robb,  _what_  –”

“Let’s say we get that started and then stay on it. It’s old, so three or four spins should be enough to kill those forty minutes. And it’s a small space. If we keep the door closed we’d be fairly warm.”

“Yeah, and that thing  _totally_  wouldn’t stop working or anything like that? And what if someone notices? The  _lights_  are on.”

“We’re far out enough that no one would come by without actually heading here. There’s just your two dumb brothers in the car and by now I guess they figured out we turned on the lights. So, you coming or not?”

“Whatever. Worth a shot.”

Theon has no clue of how Robb manages to get the wheel moving – probably sheer luck and pressing buttons on the console at random, but when it finally starts moving with a very loud creak, it’s very slow. And every cart stops at the bottom for at least a minute unless someone is at the control panel. Robb smiles.

“So. Shall we?”

Theon rolls his eyes, grabs Robb’s hand and they run into the first car, shutting the door the moment they’re both sitting.

Ten minutes later, they’re at the highest point and Theon has to admit that it wasn’t half bad of an idea. On one side he can only see the empty carny with a few lights on here and there, and it’s still majorly creepy but it’s also – well, fascinating. Sort of. If you’re into this kinda thing. On the other, he can see the few lights of their crappy little hometown on the horizon line and they’re somewhat warm now, with Robb’s hands grasping his.

“You know, this isn’t the worst idea you ever had.”

“Really.” Robb is openly smirking right now, his cheeks still red from the cold. “You know what, we should probably stay here a bit longer than forty minutes.”

“What, you want to make those two douchebags  _worry_?”

“Would serve them right, wouldn’t it?”

Theon smiles back. “You know what, screw them. The seats are comfortable after all,” he says, and then he drags Robb forward to kiss him just as the wheel starts moving downwards.

He thinks he can roll with this plan. 

 

End.


	30. asoiaf; robb/theon; canon au of the *theon saves bran's life scene*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon saves Bran's life and Robb is adequately grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same birthday extravaganza prompts. Anon wanted _something where Robb doesn't yell at Theon during the wilding thing?_ And I complied. Exactly what it says on the tin. ;)

The arrow hits the man’s neck and as Robb darts forward to catch Bran, Theon can’t help letting out a small breath of relief - not that he’d have missed, but it was a tricky shot and not anyone could pulled that off. Actually, he’s aware that he  _did_  take a risk there, but it’s not like anyone else would have done that and  _someone_  had to. And he wasn’t going to trust fucking wildlings not to actually cut Bran’s throat, so good riddance there.

When he looks up Robb is holding Bran to his chest and looking like someone who is this ready to be done with excitement for the day - he’s obviously checking his brother over, and when he lets out a breath of relief as well his shoulders do lose a bit of pent-up tension. Except that now  _Theon_ ’s own shoulders feel ridiculously tense as well, Because he’d have expected at least a reaction to what he’s just done, except that none of the men around them has even spoken a word to him - not that he didn’t expect it, even if he just saved the life of one of their lord’s sons. They have just stared at him, some obviously admiring his skill at least, but nothing more than that.

And Robb -

Robb calls one of his men and tells him to take care of his brother for the moment, and then he turns on his heel and walks up straight to him.

“You are aware,” he says, sounding tired, “that could easily have missed the mark.” He also  _looks_  tired. Same as he’s been lately, so no news there.

“I never miss,” Theon replies, shrugging and trying not to let it show that he would really like Robb to  _react_  to it. He had been expecting him to at least thank him,  _at least._ And well, it’s been years since he missed a target.

Robb stares back at him for a moment, as if he’s pondering what he should do, and then he shrugs and suddenly he looks like someone who has just decided they don’t care at all about how their next actions might be received.

“I think I know that,” he finally says, and then - then his lips curl up in a small but entirely genuine smile before he takes a last step forward and -

_Throws his arms around Theon’s shoulders._

For a moment Theon doesn’t even know what to do with that - he had  _not_  been expecting that, and while it’s not like this never happens between them it’s not like they actually - do it in _public_. Especially with he doesn’t know how many Stark men and a wildling staring at the both of them, so as he raises back his arms and reciprocates the gesture he’s definitely doing it a lot more tentatively than he would have otherwise.

But -

“Thank you,” Robb says against his collarbone, sounding utterly relieved, and well, it might not have been what he was expecting but he won’t complain anytime soon.

It’s - definitely a lot more than he actually did expect. He’d have expected a smile, maybe, and a thank you, but not like this.

And - goes, does it feel  _good_  to do it in front of people who still most probably wouldn’t trust him as far as they can throw him. So maybe he looks a bit smug when he meets anyone else’s eyes - everyone is still staring at them as if they can’t make sense of it, and Robb is still clutching at his neck.

“Anytime, Stark,” he answers, low enough that no one else can hear it, but he doesn’t doubt that Robb understood that he actually means it entirely.

 

End.


	31. asoiaf; theon + wex + throbb; trick or treating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon brings Wex trick or treating and they run into Robb doing the same thing with his siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the Halloween extravaganza prompts for [hardyngharry](http://hardyngharry.tumblr.com/) who wanted Theon bringing Wex trick or treating. This totally does NOT show my slow descent into the Marvel spiral of doom.

“You can  _forget it_ ,” Theon says the moment Wex dumps the bag in his lap.

He gets a  _very_  disappointed stare for an answer.

“No, really, I’m bringing you but I’m  _not_  dressing up. No way in hell.”

Wex keeps on staring at him. He still looks entirely not happy with the situation.

Theon figures he should at least look at the costume just to at least pretend he considered it and the moment he realizes what it is, he hands the bag over again.

“Listen, it’s all good that you like Iron Man but if you think I’m going with  _this_ , you can stuff it.”

Wex hands him a piece of paper that he had  _obviously_  written before, since it was folded in his pocket already.

Theon sighs and reads it.

_You think I don’t remember that you never did it in the first place and you stopped asking your brothers some five years ago? Just put it on._

Shit,  _really_? There are – what, six years between them? If Wex remembers the fights he used to have with his brothers and his dad about maybe going trick or treating, considering that Theon quit asking when he was eleven and Wex was  _six_  they really were louder than he had imagined.

Jesus, now he knows that he has traumatized the next door mute kid enough that he remembers Theon’s family fights about Halloween.

“Fine,  _fine_ , I’ll be the Captain America to your fucking Iron Man, just let me into the bathroom,” he sighs, wondering why couldn’t Wex have chosen something less  _not_ suited to him. Shit, he’s the least palatable choice for  _Captain America_  in the entire universe.

Still, at least it’s not a  _horrid_  costume. And he even has the fake shield.  _Jesus._

“I’m not wearing the fucking cowl. Grab that damned sign and let’s go already,” Theon sighs, and Wex follows him out of the house grinning like he’s just won the lottery.

It actually goes relatively fine – they avoid their own building because they’re not  _that_  dumb and the last thing the two of them need is gossiping, never mind that everyone hates every single one of Theon’s relatives so it’s not like he wants to go and ask for goddamned candy. So they move across the road and into the residential area next to their neighborhood – for being confining, they  _really_  look like two different planets.

And at least here no one knows them and people seem to find  _adorable_  that  _he_  is Cap, being the older one and all.

Wex is just laughing behind his  _trick or treat_ red and gold sign and Theon hopes that at least Wex is going to share  _some_  candy since he pointedly refused to bring a sack himself.

It all goes fine for half an hour, which is when they end up at the Starks’, where the lights are still  _on_ , damn it, which means that they can’t skip it, and Wex knows  _all_  about the ridiculous crush Theon has on Robb, and damn it, Theon should have never told about it. But it wasn’t his fault if they ended up paired for a project in history and the guy had turned out to be the most decent person  _ever_  and they hung out sometimes and they were sorta good friends and Theon had thought it was some decent karma going his way.

“No. No, we’re not,” Theon says, and he’s about to stop Wex from knocking when the door opens on its own and –

“Theon?” Robb asks, looking like he might burst over laughing.

“Yeah. Well, isn’t this  _appropriate_ ,” Theon blurts, because – well.

Robb had offhandedly told him that he was going to bring his brothers and sisters trick or treating, but Theon hadn’t asked  _the costumes_.

Because – seriously. It’s basically  _all the other Avengers_  except the two of them. Arya is wearing a green Hulk costume, Rickon what passes for a Thor costume in the ‘below six years old’ section at the Disney store, Bran is on his wheelchair with a properly done Hawkeye costume including the bow and Sansa is obviously Black Widow – well, she has the hair for it, doesn’t she.

Meanwhile Robb is sporting… an actually  _damn_  well done Winter Soldier attire. Including the fake metal arm. Theon can  _feel_  Wex laughing behind the sign, damn him.

“Looks to me like it  _indeed_  is,” Robb snorts. “Well, I suppose Iron Man over here is your neighbor, right?”

“That would be him,” Theon sighs, and Wex slams his elbow in Theon’s side and Robb laughs out loud at that – well, at least that.

Arya does exactly the same thing to Robb a moment later though, then steps forward. “Well, we actually  _did_  try to get our parents to come as Cap and Iron Man, but they refused, and since Robb is going to be an idiot and it’ll take him one hour to say it, how about you just come with us and then you and him can split whatever candy we were going to spare you? By the way, being Cap doesn’t put you in charge.”

Before Theon can answer, Wex has already elbowed him  _again_  and gone over to the other side of the fence where Arya offers up her hand for a high five when  _they don’t even know each other._

“Looks like I don’t even get to put in a vote, so yeah, sure. Me and him can just terrorize people into giving you candy, just get a move on.”

Robb laughs again and they let the others go ahead of them, though not by much.

He doesn’t tell Robb that gray and black looks  _very_  good on him until Robb blushes crimson and tells him that he should really consider wearing thighs more often, but then he does, and they make a very poor job of terrorizing anyone into giving candy over, but Sansa and Arya are doing fine with it, and he had forgotten that Bran knew some sign language so he and Wex are having some conversation he’s not even trying to follow, and –

Fine. It’s kind of nice to tag along. And he  _really_  can’t help being ridiculously pleased that he and Robb have matching costumes.

Fine.  _Fine_ , he’s gonna ask Wex if he can keep it and Wex will probably say yes after laughing in his face again, but it might be worth it in the long run.

 

End.


	32. asoiaf; theon + jeyne; adwd missing scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _the moment he and jeyne hit the cold, hard ground, he screams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for a WHUMP THE CHARACTER meme on tumblr; an anon asked Theon and 'I can't walk'. Set just after they jump in ADWD so you know what to expect.

The moment he and Jeyne hit the cold, hard ground, he screams.

Not like anyone will hear him except for Jeyne, maybe, but they’re in the middle of a snow storm and who even knows if it covered the sound. Not that it matters – she’s staring into nothing, her fingernails digging into his arms, and he doubts she even realized.

Still.

It  _hurts_.

He takes a deep breath, thankful that the snow cushioned their fall – he doesn’t think he broke anything. It doesn’t look like she has, either.

Good. Good, now he just has to get away. The snow will only hide them for so long, and he doesn’t doubt that someone will be out searching for them soon – he wishes that jumping from that roof meant safety.

He breathes in and tries to stand up.

Then he screams and falls back down on his knees.

His feet aren’t just hurting – they’re flaring in pain. Of course they would – they were hurting already as he walked up the stairs, and maybe he could have broken a few of his remaining toes in the fall. It’s not as if he has good shoes on.

He tries again. He screams again.

 _I can’t walk_ ,he thinks. There’s really nothing more to it. He tries again. He barely manages to pull himself to his feet before crumbling to the ground again.

 _I can’t walk and the longer we stay here the higher the risk_.

He knows he’s panicking, but what else can he do? He moves his hands to Jeyne’s shoulders, shakes her a bit until she looks at him in the face.

“You have to go,” he croaks, hoping that she hears him regardless of the wind. “Leave. If you walk straight you should run into the Umbers.” Gods, he hopes that he remembers right – he thinks that he heard drums coming from that direction not long before their mad escape attempt, but he could be wrong. “Tell them you’re Arya. All right? Go.”

Jeyne just stares at him and shakes her head, clinging further, her nails digging painfully against his skin, and – and he just knows she won’t leave if he doesn’t.

Except that  _he can’t walk._  Even if he could pull himself to his feet he probably wouldn’t manage more than a few steps, and he’s cold, and the more time passes the more he hurts everywhere.

He doesn’t want to believe that they went through all that effort just to die frozen in a ditch just outside Winterfell, but he can’t.

He just.

Can’t.

He closes his eyes when they start stinging, and he can feel a tear freezing against his cheek when it falls down from his eyelids.

He isn’t even wearing anything proper – after all, why would he need a real cloak when he had the dogs for warmth?

 _I’m sorry,_  he thinks to no one.  _I can’t. I can’t walk. I can’t –_

 _You can_ , he hears from – from  _somewhere_ , and good gods, he  _really_  has to be this close to death if he’s hallucinating Robb’s voice now.

 _No, I can’t_.

He opens his eyes, and of course there’s no one around except him and Jeyne. Good thing at that.

 _I think you can_.

He  _really_  is going mad, isn’t he?

_I tried._

_Then try again. You haven’t come this far just to stop at this point, have you?_

Which is an entirely good point, whoever or whatever is making it, and – while he doesn’t think that dying at this point would be too bad, at least he’d die free, what happens if they send men and they’re caught before then?

 _You can_ , he hears again, and he really doesn’t think it’s the case, but trying again won’t hurt, will it? Not more than it has already.

He takes another deep breath, tries to concentrate on grabbing Jeyne’s shoulders and bringing her up with him and he stands up.

Pain flares through his legs all over again, but at least he doesn’t crumble back down again.

Then he closes his eyes and takes a step forward. It doesn’t stop hurting, but it’s not so bad that he can’t take another. Jeyne goes along with him without questioning, and while for the first few steps he thinks that he’s going to fall down at some point soon, he never does.

Maybe he can keep on until the camp.

 _I told you_ , he hears when they can barely see Winterfell through the snow anymore.

He can’t say where that voice came from, and he can’t ask Jeyne if she heard it, too – he doubts he’d receive an answer. Maybe he’s just going insane for real.

Then again, does it even matter? He can walk. That’s everything he needs for now. So he takes another step, and another.

“Thank you,” he croaks into the cold air, feeling like he could smile if only he remembered how.

End.


	33. asoiaf; jon/theon; modern au, the two of them being ridiculous dorks; pg13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon wants Jon to stay the night even if they have a no strings attached relationship but he's the worst ever at asking for it clearly. Robb has to clear it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally written for [irisparry](http://irisparry.tumblr.com); exactly what the summary says.

The first time Jon thinks that Theon might have some issue with their so called arrangement, it’s when he’s getting dressed and Theon glares at him in a _strange_ way. Not the usual one, at least. And he glares for a long while.

“Do you have a problem?” Jon says finally, halfway through lacing up his boots.

“… no. Fuck off already, Snow.”

Jon shrugs and leaves – it’s not too late, he can still catch the night bus back to his apartment.

\--

The second time, Theon looks as if he wants to say something but won’t, which is a fairly ridiculous look on someone whose face is still flushed from having come in Jon’s mouth minutes earlier.

“Is there something you want to say?” Jon asks as he pulls on his shirt.

“Nah. Are you sure that you want to go back home at one in the morning, though?”

“I can take care of myself, but thanks for the solicitude. That would be the first time in the fifteen years I’ve known you,” Jon replies, and Theon looks at him as if he’s frustrated for maybe a moment, but then he rolls his eyes and turns his back on Jon, obviously going back to bed.

\--

“Snow?” 

Jon is fumbling in the dark with his jeans – the electric light has gone out in the entire block but it’s not like it stopped them, before. But now dressing without seeing anything except for what a little moonlight allows him to is getting bothersome.

“Yes?”

He waits for an answer while he zips up his pants and finds his sneakers under the bed.

“Nothing,” Theon sighs a moment later, and Jon doesn’t press – he’ll probably have to call a taxi, so he’d better hurry up.

\--

“You know,” Theon starts a few days later as Jon grabs his t-shirt and pulls it on, and then never continues it.

“Yes?” Jon asks after a minute of silence.

“You know what, nothing of import. Just go.” Then he gives Jon the shoulder again.

\--

After a month of this, Jon decides that if Theon won’t say what’s the problem, he’s just going to cheat and ask Robb.

“I hope this doesn’t mean that you’ll give me _details_ ,” Robb tells him as Jon walks into his room.

“No. But – there’s something weird going on with him.”

“Like?”

“Like – when we’re done – we said it was a no strings attached thing, right?”

“Aha. And?”

“And – either he stares at me or asks questions he doesn’t finish, and when I ask him what’s the deal he just says it’s nothing and looks at me like he’s pissed off, and then the next day it’s as if it never happened. I don’t know what’s his deal, all right?”

Robb’s eyes narrow for a moment before he groans and slams his palm against his forehead. “Oh, for the love of – Jon, how long has this been going on?”

“… Three months? Why?”

“How dense can the both of you be?”

“… Excuse me?”

“Jon, you’re the longest relationship he’s ever had.”

For a moment, Jon feels like a fish out of water. “I’m _what_?”

“He’s never been with anyone for three months. Not even when it was no strings attached. If he proposed that it’s just because he’s an idiot and he thinks he’ll fuck up any real relationship he might try. He probably just wants you to stay over but he can’t ask you like a properly adjusted human being.”

For a moment Jon kind of feels like an idiot that he couldn’t get there but it took Robb three seconds – then again, Robb is the one who’s best friends with Theon, not him. Then again, he could have suspected that it was something as stupid as that.

“Oh. All right. I just – okay. I’ll see to it.”

“Good. And listen – god, I feel like an idiot having this conversation with you since on all accounts I should have it with him, but – I think he really likes you. If you’d like to be serious about it – just _be serious_ about it, okay?”

Jon entirely gets the oddity of the situation, but he kind of gets why Robb is giving him the talk, so he shrugs and nods at him. “Duly noted. Don’t worry, I can be serious about. I kind of want to, anyway.”

“Good. And swear you’ll never mention this to me ever again.”

Jon snorts and Robb bursts out laughing and it’s over there. For the moment.

\--

That evening, Jon doesn’t go for his clothes at all.

He can see sheer surprise on Theon’s face when he turns on his side, throws an arm around his waist and hooks one of his ankles around Theon’s, and doesn’t even attempt to move from the bed.

“Jon, what are you even doing?”

Jon can’t help grinning smugly as he notices that Theon hasn’t called him _Snow_.

“I figured that out,” he sort of lies, but it’s not the point. “And you only had to ask, idiot.”

For a moment, he has no clue of what to expect as Theon watches him with a sort of blank expression.

But then Theon moves closer, his chin resting on Jon’s shoulder, and he doesn’t have any smug remark to say apparently.

Jon decides that he could get used to this and says nothing either.


	34. asoiaf; davos/stannis, bbc sherlock AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So yes, I’ve actually spent the last two weeks in said godforsaken small village in Wales. Where, of course, we ended up at a cheap hotel without A/C, not that I can blame that one on Stannis not wanting to waste unnecessary money on luxuries - it was the only one in the village._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for a meme on tumblr where someone had to leave a fictional character in your inbox and you'd write a ficlet for one of your OTPs inspired by the prompt connected to that fictional character.
> 
> [striped-coat](http://striped-coat.tumblr.com/) gave me John Watson, whose prompt was _first-person blog entry_. This happened. I have no fucking excuse.

_the personal blog of Davos Seaworth_ , July 18th, 2013

Is it really been three weeks since I last posted? I hadn’t thought it was that long. Apologies to anyone who’s been waiting for updates, and I wish I could tell you it’s because it was too hot to even think about approaching the bloody laptop. Well, it’s  _that,_ too, since the only time I suggested Stannis that we  _might_  invest in an A/C I received a speech about pollution and  _I’ve spent three years stationed in Afghanistan, surely a bit of high pressure won’t be what kills me._ Then he decided a fan was acceptable - his  _old_  fan, it was probably old in the mid-nineties, but then again better than nothing. Except that just after I finally set it up some client showed up with a case - seriously, who is the person who decides to be a serial killer in some godforsaken village in Wales  _in the middle of an heat wave_?

So yes, I’ve actually spent the last two weeks in said godforsaken small village in Wales. Where, of course, we ended up at a cheap hotel  _without_ A/C, not that I can blame that one on Stannis not wanting to waste unnecessary money on luxuries - it was the only one in the village. No A/C, no Internet, no television and a serial killer out there somewhere. Before you ask in the comments,  _yes_ , Stannis actually liked the bloody place. Genuinely.

Sadly I can’t even write that much more about it - if only the case had been worth it, but it took Stannis an afternoon of asking the usual blunt questions - the only hilarious thing about it was that no one was too impressed by the teeth-gritting - to find out that it was the only other person staying in the motel. Some guy who turns out had escaped from a psych ward from Swansea - listen, I really wish I could give you more details but I had skipped breakfast  _and_  drove straight until the village and the guy got shipped back to the psych ward before it was even time for dinner. What I can tell you is that Stannis refused to leave the next day since he had paid for a week at the hotel and he wasn’t about to waste money that way. At that point I decided that if I had to spend one week in Llangennith we might as well go for a swim. I can also tell you that it took a day of needling him but he eventually relented. Yes, I have pictures. No, I can’t post them online - I actually care about my survival, and if I do that Stannis might kill me before the heat will. Actually, I should go turn on the bloody fan before the laptop explodes from the heat. Anyway, this was an update. I hope next time is more entertaining, for everyone’s benefit.

End.


	35. asoiaf; robb + sansa; asos canon divergence-ish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb does come to rescue Sansa in King's Landing after all, but there's a catch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon who wanted _How about Robb shows up and rescues a member of his family or Theon (maybe they'd heard he was dead, maybe they haven't) and after they're safe it turns out he was dead all along?_ for the Halloween prompts. Since I did Theon a bunch of times also with ghost!Robb I figured why not Sansa.
> 
> Also Purple Wedding AU in the sense that what happened in canon still happens, just differently.

“ _Bring on my royal jousters!_ ”

Sansa doesn’t dare close her eyes as the dwarfs come out into the hall.

Even if she really,  _really_  would like to do just that, but what if someone notices? She has to pretend. So she does and stares at the spectacle in front of her trying not to concentrate on it too hard.

It lasts long enough for her to swallow down the urge to vomit thrice.

She’s about to give in to the urge when Joffrey shouts  _We have a champion_  as he laughs and takes another drink, and then –

Then an arrow hits his goblet, making it crash to the ground and landing straight into the guard who had been standing behind Joffrey.

Suddenly, the entire party is silent. Joffrey looks furious as he stands up.

“ _Who_  dares?”

Sansa flinches minutely at the scream, and she dares glance at Margaery – she looks petrified and she isn’t trying to calm him down either, not that anyone would. Even the Queen looks as petrified as Margaery, and if  _she_  is –

“I do.” A voice that is somehow  _familiar_  suddenly breaks the silence and someone wearing a dirty brown hooded cloak steps forward – he’s a man, and he’s dressed in nondescriptive green clothes and has a sword at his hip and a bow on his back.

His face is almost completely covered, if not for dirty ginger stubble covering his chin, and –

And  _it can’t be, wasn’t he dead_ , Sansa thinks, not allowing hope to blossom in her chest because it’s happened all too often lately.

“ _Your Grace_ ,” the man mocks, his voice so full of loathing it could be impossible to mistake it for anything else, and then he drags down his hood.

“You’re dead,” Joffrey says the moment Robb Stark’s eyes look into his. “You’re dead, you’re _dead_ , you can’t be –”

“ _Your Grace_ , I feel like rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Robb answers, and Sansa realizes she hadn’t recognized his voice before because it’s deeper than she remembered it being, but then again he’s hardly the fifteen-year old with snowflakes in his hair that she remembers from the last time she saw him, is he? “And rumors of  _his_ ,” Robb adds, and a moment later the crowd parts because they heard a growl, and a grey wolf is walking through the empty space until it reaches Robb’s side.

All of a sudden, there’s silence all over again. Sansa thinks people might hear a pin drop, if it did drop in the first place.

“However,” Robb keeps on, taking a few steps until he’s standing right in front of Joffrey’s seat – now that Joffrey has fallen down sitting on it, Robb looks impossibly tall, “I can assure you that it will  _not_  be the case as far as you’re concerned.” And then he reaches out and wraps his hand around Joffrey’s neck. He doesn’t even put much effort into pressing – the moment his fingers curl around soft, pale flesh, it turns to a sickly purple color at once and Joffrey starts sputtering.

“What – what  _are you_  and  _what do you want_?” Cersei Lannister screams as Robb’s hold doesn’t lessen. Her father’s face is ashen.

“Why, my lady, I think it should be plenty evident. You  _know_  who I am. And I merely came to collect my sister, but I figured that I would also pay the realm a favor and pay you and your lord father the same favor  _you_  paid my lady mother. It’s only fair, isn’t it?”

And the thing is that – he sounds almost remorseful as he says it. As it  _pains_  him to be in this situation, as he wishes he could do this another way, but his fingers’ grip doesn’t falter and when he lets Joffrey go, his entire face is a sickening shade of purple and he’s not breathing any more.

Robb smiles, and then he reaches to his right and catches the handle of a knife that had been thrown his way from behind. A moment later, a grey blur lurches forward and the ground is covered in – in what used to be a member of the Kingsguard. Sansa can’t even recognize him, for how mauled his face is.

“I assume none of you will try something like this again,” Robb says, smiling all over again. “And as far as I am concerned, Stannis Baratheon can have his fun the next time he tries to attack the city – I  _would_  kill you, but I think it would be a lot less merciful to let you live and deal with this. Meanwhile, I will do what I came here for.”

And then he turns his back on the table and walks toward hers, every inch the dashing prince he always played with her, Arya and Jon years ago in Winterfell, and holds out a hand to her.

“I’m sorry I came this late,” he says as his lips curl up in a small, apologetic smile. “Shall we go?”

Sansa doesn’t try to stop the tears from falling as she reaches out and takes it.

No one tries to stop them once.

–

Robb leads her out of the Red Keep, then tells her to grab a horse and says he’ll lead with Grey Wind – she follows him until the nearest gate out of King’s Landing, where –

Where another person wearing a hood and standing next to a horse is waiting for them, apparently, because Robb nods at them when they pass through. The other person climbs and follows them both out until Robb stops – they’re a few miles from the city, on the way to Riverrun if Sansa remembers right.

“I guess this is as safe as it gets,” Robb says. “Jeyne, you can let down that hood.”

_Jeyne_?

Sansa can’t keep in the sob that rises from her throat the moment the hood reveals Jeyne Poole’s face – she also looks tired, and as if she has aged ten years since the last time they saw each other, but she’s smiling as well and Sansa doesn’t lose time getting off the horse and crushing her to her chest.

“How – where –” She starts.

“I was – in one of Lord Baelish’s brothels. But – he – he showed up this morning, scared everyone else into leaving the room, gave me the cloak and told me to wait at the gate.”

At that, Jeyne lets her go, and Sansa does what she’s been wanting to do since her father died in front of her.

When she throws herself into Robb’s arms he’s quick to close his hands around her shoulders and hold back as strongly, and even if his body feels a bit cold considering the weather and that he’s wearing enough clothes, Sansa doesn’t mind it for the moment.

“I can’t believe it,” she sobs when she can find it in herself to move back and look at him in the face. “They said you were dead, they said –”

“About that,” Robb interrupts, sounding suddenly regretful. “It’s – complicated. But – we got this far, which is good, but it won’t last long. Sansa, listen to me, all right? I need you and Jeyne to go back to Riverrun. It shouldn’t take you long of you ride carefully.”

He reaches down into his cloak and hands her a bag – she can feel it’s gold from the weight.

“This should last you until you reach the castle. Arya is there already.”

“ _Arya_?”

“Yes. But it’s still not safe enough. After you get there, take a bit of time to – to recover, and then you have to go to the Wall.”

“To the  _Wall_?”

“Yes. Talk to Jon. He – he knows. I wish I could explain you, but I really cannot now.”

“But – the Boltons have the North. And – aren’t you coming with us?”

Robb smiles the saddest smile Sansa has ever seen in her life.

“The Boltons won’t have the North five days from now. And – I wish I could. I wish, but – I only have three days and I’m not done yet.”

“You –  _you only have three days_?”

Robb looks at her for a moment, then shrugs and takes a step back. Then he grabs the lapels of his shirt – the collar had been turned upward so that it reached his chin – and he drags it down.

Sansa doesn’t scream just because after all that time in King’s Landing, she’s learned to conceal her reactions.

But on his throat there’s a red, deep,  _ugly_  gash that  _no one_  could possibly survive.

“Robb –”

“The rumors of my demise weren’t rumors at all,” Robb says, covering up the gash again. “And you really don’t want to know how I’m here. But – I couldn’t – I just couldn’t leave and do nothing.”

“So – when you said three days –”

“This is the second. I have tomorrow, and then – then I’ll be really gone, but I have something else to fix before I leave. Promise me you will  _not_  look into it, Sansa.”

“But –”

“ _Please._  Arya doesn’t know, she thinks I’ll come back with you – I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, but – I have to go now. Just tell her I’m sorry, all right?”

“All right,” Sansa answers, not even trying to stop the tears falling from her eyes. “But – can you tell me where are you going?”

“I told you the Boltons wouldn’t be a problem anymore, would they? I’m going to the Dreadfort. Grey Wind is going with you until Riverrun. He might stay or he might not. Look out for ravens from the North and – I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. I really am.”

_You’re dead and you came anyway_ , Sansa wants to say. But instead –

“At times – he said he would give me your head as a wedding gift,” she sobs. “I used to dream that you would take me his.”

“I hope it was close enough then.” He’s smiling again, and Sansa gives him a nod, and she’s crying so much that everything in her sight is blurry. She feels a cold hand at the back of her neck and lips pressing against her forehead, and then –

Grey Wind is sitting at her feet and Robb is gone.

“Did – did he just – disappear?” She asks, her voice so thin she can barely hear it.

Jeyne gives her a small nod, and then Sansa breathes in once, twice, thrice, her hand going to Grey Wind’s head, stroking the fur behind his ears.

“Very well. Then – then we should go to Riverrun.”

(Two days after they reach the castle – and Arya is there, and  _Sandor Clegane_  is there, and what’s left of her mother’s family is there, and Sansa is so thankful for it she might burst with it – they get three ravens.

One is from the Vale – the Lord Protector has somehow mysteriously fallen from the Moon Door. Sansa doesn’t miss the way Jeyne’s shoulders sag in relief when she hears it.

One is from Lord Manderly in White Arbor. It says that a small group of Bolton soldiers coming to the Dreadfort from a recon found everyone dead. Roose Bolton, his bastard, his new Frey wife, every single soldier stationed there, all dead, the same way Joffrey Baratheon died or so it seems like. All the prisoners were freed, though some maid insist that there was one named Reek or some equally disturbing name that Lord Ramsay  _liked better than the others_  who cannot be accounted and doesn’t seem to be found anywhere.

One is from the Wall – Jon Snow writes that one of Robb’s bannermen brought him Robb’s will, written just before the Red Wedding, where it says that  _he_  is supposed to be the heir, but he knows Winterfell belongs to her by rights and he’s just been elected Lord Commander, so he has no interest in divulging it. He would be glad to welcome her at the Wall so they could talk about it in person.

Sansa doesn’t know what kind of tears she starts crying after reading the last letter.

_Go to the Wall,_ Robb had said.  _Jon knows._

Sansa thinks she will. Very soon.)

 

End.


	36. x-factor; rictor/shatterstar; FBI agents au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Truth is, at least one of them is wasted for the fucking cold cases department. Never mind that it’s the mutant cold cases department, which no one gives a shit about - that’s the cherry on top of the cake._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an anon left me Fox Mulder, aka 'snarky FBI agents' for the aforementioned character meme. I have no idea of how this happened but it was honestly the first thing that came to mind. One day I'll write this ship for serious but this isn't it, I fear.

Truth is, at least one of them is wasted for the fucking cold cases department. Never mind that it’s the  _mutant_  cold cases department, which no one gives a shit about - that’s the cherry on top of the cake. Ric knows why  _he_ 's here, at least - he might have passed his academy training almost at the top of his class and he does have a useful mutation, as far as the FBI is concerned, and they  _do_  have to hire a quota of mutants every year by law, but it doesn’t mean that they like it.

So okay, he was assigned to that department, it wasn’t anything he wasn’t expecting. It does pay the bills, more or less. The fact that his current partner has been in there for years, though, makes Ric wonder how  _dumb_  the people in charge are. Fine, maybe the guy is a refugee from another dimension  _and_  sort of a mutant to boot, which is probably why he’s not having much of a career at all. He also can be endlessly frustrating, he watches entirely too much crappy television and has a weird way of expressing emotions  _when_  he remembers to, but for fuck’s sake, Ric’s been working with him for six months by now. Never mind that he’s proficient at pretty much any kind of hand to hand combat or that he’s a better shot than anyone Ric knows - and he’s gone through training, and his dad was a fucking  _gun dealer_  - but he’s also pretty damn smart as far as his work is concerned. Hell, they resolved ten of those cold cases in three months and Ric mostly did the grunt work. Benching the guy in their small, cramped department with just the two of them working is a fucking crime, that’s what it is, and just because he’s an alien. Not that Ric is ever gonna say that to Shatterstar’s face - he’s already working hard enough to hide the fact that he has legitimate crush on the guy, regardless of his crappy taste in television.

Never mind that he could do without the re-run of  _Masterchef_  in the background. From what he knows, his partner had a pretty shitty life on his homeworld - he’s going to let him watch his crappy television. He’s trying to find the force of will to go through some paperwork when a folder lands in front of him from the other side of the room. He rolls his eyes and opens it. Another cold case. Some kidnapped mutant girl. In -

“‘Star, I know you’re  _good_ , but fifteen years? Never mind cold cases, this one’s fucking frozen.”

"I do not feel like it’s a good reason to not even try."

Ric shrugs and reads a bit into the file, then closes it. “Dude, if you think you can pull that off, cool. I mean, not like I know anyone else who could crack it.”

"I think  _we_  can pull that off,” ‘Star replies, and shit, now he’s staring at him, and the other side of the room isn’t that far when the room is fucking  _cramped._

"I think  _you_  are the one who’s wasted in this dump,” Ric snaps back, and  _shit_ , he probably said too much.

"Sorry?"

"Come on, if only you had Earth citizenship your paycheck would be a lot higher. Don’t look at me like  _that_ , it’s the truth.”

"You underestimate yourself, Julio" ‘Star says a moment later, and shit, is the guy  _blushing_? Ric isn’t sure he’s ever seen him lose his cool like this in six months. Well then.  _Maybe_  he’s not pining hopelessly.

"What would you say that we start looking this over after I buy you some overpriced coffee, as long as you stop calling me like my mother does?"

'Star's eyes go wide. “Are you buying me coffee just because, or is it what people do when they're asking-“

"Yes, I’m asking you out," Ric replies, and if he sounds a bit fond, he can’t help it.

And then ‘Star outright  _grins,_ even if he’s looking a bit sheepish, and christ, why doesn’t the guy smile more often?

Ric’s not sure he’s going to survive the trip to Starbucks, but well, getting stuck in cold cases? Entirely worth it.


	37. the vampire diaries; damon/alaric; dick picks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Ric shouldn't have left his phone where everyone could see it and Damon is an exhibitionist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [eclectictsunami](http://tmblr.co/mb55kEJ2u-V8OLqtwHSMKGg) for the birthday prompts extravaganza - she wanted Damon/Alaric and dick pics, I complied. This was written before S6 aired so just take everything as an AU from the S5 finale on, thank you and disregard canon.

Point is, Ric should  _not_  have left his cellphone alone.

The  _other_  point is, that in between coming back to life, getting Damon and Bonnie out of whatever it was that took the place of the fucking other side, finding a way to get himself re-hired at the new and not-so improved Mystic Falls High and so on, you’ll forgive him for leaving his phone in plain sight while he took a  _very_  earned shower.

Then again, he should  _not_  have left that alone while Damon was outside of town with his brother because they needed to  _talk shit out_  or whatever it was that they had to do. Never mind everyone else being in the boarding house’s living room because Caroline has decided that the best course of action after getting their two lost sheep back is throwing a party every week  _to make up for all the misery of this past year._

He knows he made a mistake the moment he walks back into the living room with damp hair and fresh clothes and finds Elena, Jeremy, Caroline, Bonnie, Tyler and Matt all huddled around his phone. Tyler is the one actually holding the phone and he’s looking at it as if he doesn’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted. Caroline and Elena are  _trying_  not to laugh out loud. Bonnie and Matt just look downright disturbed. Jeremy is resolutely staring at the other side of the room.

_What._

“… What’s going on?” Ric asks, dreading the answer.

Everyone’s face shoots up in his direction.

Caroline and Elena start laughing.

“…  _What._ ”

“Uh,” Matt croaks, obviously gathering courage, but after a moment it’s obvious that no one else is going to speak. “You got a text. And – Tyler was next to the phone, and saw it was Damon, and he figured that maybe it was something urgent, so he – uh. He opened it.”

“Okay. And?”

“And – uh – well, just, you could have told us?”

“I could have told you  _what_?”

“That you and him, you know, er –” Matt stammers, obviously way down into the deepest pits of Embarrassment Hell. “You know what we watched last movie night, yes?”

“What,  _Captain America_? What does this have to do with –”

“That you and Damon are, y’know,  _fonduing_?”

Caroline and Elena are beyond hysterical laughter.

Ric just motions for Tyler to hand over the phone and –

Well.  _Shit._  Of course they would laugh. Since the text is a picture of Damon’s dick, with a charming _miss me? <3 xoxoxoxo _written in the actual text part of it.

Of course those two are laughing, since they’re the only two people in the room who  _saw_  said dick in person.

“We were  _fonduing_  before I died,” Ric groans. “What the hell.  _Why_.”

“… Congratulations?” Tyler stammers, still looking somewhat disgusted.

“I’ll just – go call him. You – you guys just – keep on doing whatever you were doing. I’m – uh. Sorry. About this.”

Then he hightails out of the room and presses  _call._

“Well, took you a long time to pick up,” Damon starts without even saying  _hi_.

“ _Well_ , I was taking a shower and my phone was downstairs. Now everyone in our small group of nutjobs who  _didn’t_  know the way your dick looks like does. Satisfied?”

For a moment, no answer comes.

Then.

“Then I guess they all know what they’re missing now. No harm done, right?”

_Jesus_ , Ric doesn’t say. “How has Stefan even let you do this?”

“My brother is currently a lot more smashed than I am and he absolutely did  _not_  want to be present while I took that picture.”

“Well, your brother is still the one with the brains then.”

“Why, didn’t you  _miss_  it?

“I  _might_  miss your stupid dick, but insofar as it’s attached to  _you_ , dumbass. How long are you gonna be soul searching?”

He was expecting some witty reply or  _something_.

Instead, he gets thirty seconds of silence. Then.

“Well, we did talk shit out. Maybe tomorrow. Depends on how many limits my brother’s willing to let me break. And no one was  _soul searching_.”

“Yeah, yeah, you weren’t soul searching and you weren’t sending me inappropriate pictures.”

“Not my fault if you surround yourself with teenagers even off work.”

“Says the one who got angry at me about leaving you to babysit them  _while I was dead_. Just get the fuck over here soon instead of feeding my frustration.”

“Oooh, so you  _did_  miss it.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll gladly let you, if Stefan doesn’t insist on  _safe driving_ ,” Damon purrs into the phone.

Ric curses the fact that there’s no safe place for phone sex as far as the house goes.

Still.

“Then please hurry the fuck up,” he says, and then closes the call.

When Damon doesn’t call back, he hurries to the bathroom, spends a moment regretting the loss of his moral integrity, locks the door, pushes down his jeans and underwear, takes a picture of his equipment – and damn it, he’s not half-hard but he’s not even  _not_  hard either –, attaches it to a text, writes  _he’s missing you too,_  and then sends it forward.

Never let it be said that he didn’t fight for the last word.

 

End.


	38. the avengers; bruce/steve + clint + team; stealth-dating; pg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Bruce and Steve don't know they're dating and Clint can't avoid joining the Avengers' betting pool for much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [sereppu](http://sereppu.tumblr.com) who wanted Bruce/Steve stealth-dating. How it turned into outsider POV with no resolution whatsoever idek also as it is, this is the first and only MCU fic I ever wrote so idek just take it for what it is. Also it entirely disregards Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.

At the beginning, Clint thinks, it was kind of cute. Not that he’d be caught saying it out loud, but the first time Bruce volunteered to bring Steve to the MOMA (it was a month or so after the avoided alien invasion and maybe a week after Steve came back to Stark Tower saying that he kind of hated the apartment SHIELD provided him with – Tony just told him to go get his own stupid floor already) he had actually thought that Steve might have died there and then of gratefulness – clearly going around the country in that motorbike of his hadn’t exactly taught him how to navigate the subway or move around in current times New York. Then they came back and Steve looked half elated and half angry because since when tickets for museums cost _that much_ , and Bruce merely looked glad that Rogers had a good time. Clint also thinks that he was surprised at not having hulked out for some random reason, but that was just the beginning of it.

After the MOMA, they went to the Met, then to Carnegie Hall. Then to the public library. Then to the Brooklyn Museum of Art (that was _a surprise_ for Steve’s birthday – that actually was the time when Clint started thinking that there was more to it than Bruce wanting to make friends that weren’t named Tony Stark and Steve being thankful that someone was showing him around). Then there was the Guggenheim. Then Bruce’s birthday came round and – well, not on the actual birthday since on that day Tony had reclaimed Bruce for some science shenanigans somewhere not in town, but on the next day – they had gone to the fucking Met Opera House to see some integral version of some ridiculously long French opera (Steve had bought the tickets obviously). No hulk-outs happened throughout any of this.

And at that point, it was kind of so blatant that Clint can’t understand how those two can say that they’re doing this as _friends_.

“Fuck this,” he declares to the dining hall (those other two are out again, obviously. Clint has no clue of where they went – probably some other museum, New York doesn’t exactly lack in that department), “I’m pointing out that they’re dating next time I see one of them.”

“You will not do such a thing,” Natasha replies amiably from the other side of the table.

“Legolas, if I were you I’d do as she says,” Tony agrees as he grabs a slice of pizza from the newly arrived take-out.

“Come on, it’s ridiculous by now!”

“No one disagrees with that,” Tony says. “But what’s the fun if you make them aware of it? Besides, you’d be meddling with something extremely dangerous.”

“Right,” Clint sighs, “your ridiculous betting pool.”

“My friend, the fact that you are not taking part does not mean you should spoil it for everyone who, in fact, _does_.”

Excellent, Clint thinks, now even the Norse god is against him on this. “Wait – Thor, since when are you on that, too?”

“Since the beginning?”

“And Hill tells me to grow up,” Clint mutters. “I still think putting them out of their frustrated misery would be better, but I’m not going to risk the three of you killing me for _spoiling your fun_.”

“You have to admit that they’re adorable, though,” Natasha says.

“Wait, who has to be put out of their misery? What did I miss?”

Pepper has just walked into the room, handing Tony something after kissing him quickly, and looking ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

“Oh, nothing,” Tony replies, looking way too smug for Clint’s liking. “Just the whole Bruce and Cap thing. You know, where they’ve been dating for months and they still don’t see it.”

“Oh, _that_. They still didn’t get it?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad. Put another two hundred in the pool for me then, won’t you? And don’t you dare not show up at tomorrow’s meeting.” She squeezes Tony’s hand before running away on heels that are entirely too high for someone not genetically enhanced to walk on them.

“Wait. _She_ ’s on the betting pool, too?”

“Of course she is,” Natasha tells him with the tone of someone who thinks that they’re speaking with a complete idiot.

“Just for curiosity, and she has her money on…?”

“Bruce, obviously,” Stark answers, looking even more fucking smug.

“Right. Because _you_ have your money on Bruce, right?”

“Why? She’s learned to trust my instincts when she’s sure they’re right!”

“Friends, I would advise you to change subject – they’re walking up the stairs now.”

Bless Thor and his superhuman hearing, Clint thinks as the subject gets in fact abruptly changed to what they should watch on the next movie night seconds before both Bruce and Steve walk inside the dining hall.

Good lord, Clint thinks, this is not fucking happening. It’s not like he ever paid attention to how they actually dressed when they went out, but now that he notices… Bruce isn’t wearing his usual extra-large shirts that make him seem like he’s trying to hide from the world and worn-out trousers (nevermind that Tony bought him an entire new closet, the guy always manages to make his clothes look worn-out) – rather, he’s gone for fairly new jeans and a shirt that doesn’t hide that he actually has a nicely toned chest underneath.

Bruce is wearing a fucking suit. Right, a cheap one, and without tie, but the trousers and jacket are matched, and the shirt is a slightly lighter shade of blue that matches the darker tone of the suit quite well, and it’s obvious that they both put an effort in dressing decently.

“Had a good time?” Tony asks, making it sound as if he’s asking whether they screwed or not. Bruce’s cheeks go slightly red at that and he looks strangely worried, so Clint figures that they still haven’t figured shit out, but Steve is such in a good mood that he completely does not get the innuendo.

Turns out they went to the opera again to see some melodrama that Rogers’s mother used to listen to on a cheap gramophone or something like that – well, seems like they owned only that record, but not the point. Oh, and Rogers apparently cried at the end.

“Well, it was a touching interpretation,” Bruce says when Tony bursts out laughing at that, and Steve sends him a half-grateful look. Bruce smiles at it, not too widely and not overtly, but it’s still enough to light up his face (considering that the guy only ever laughs when around Tony, but Tony doesn’t really count for this).

They’re so dating.

“Anyway,” Clint interrupts, “we were trying to decide what we should watch for movie night next. I figured that Cap and Thor could get caught up on some classics and thought we should watch _Godfather_ –”

“Which everyone except them has already seen twenty times already,” Stark interrupts, “and the original _Star Wars_ is a lot more urgent, if there’s catching up with the seventies should be done.”

“Because it would kill both of you to watch something not American,” Natasha says, sort of glaring at them, before saying that they should totally watch _Solaris_ instead.

“I should hope that you’d side with me,” Stark tells, staring at Banner as if he’s daring him to betray the science bro code or whatever the hell they have going on between the two of them.

Well, at this point Banner should be the one deciding where the scales fall, since Steve and Thor can’t exactly vote.

“… how about there’s no siding instead and we let, uh, Pepper pick for everyone, possibly not one of those three?”

Smooth, Clint thinks. If he wanted to get out of the discussion, there wasn’t a better way.

“I think Bruce is right,” Rogers chimes a second later, and – right. Two against four, but since the other four don’t agree, Clint figures that they’re the majority.

“Aw, you and your no violence ways, what’s the fun in it?” Stark sighs, but then grabs his phone to supposedly text Pepper, and when both Banner and Rogers excuse themselves because it was a long night and a long opera, Clint figures that if he can’t beat them, he might as well join them.

“Right. Stark, how is the betting pool right now?”

“The – oh, right. Pepper, Coulson and I have the money on Bruce, Tarkovsky’s number one fan, Maria Hill and the resident demigod have it on Steve.”

“ _Coulson_ is on this and hasn’t bet on Steve? Oh god, this is all kinds of wrong. Right, Stark, I’m pitching one hundred for Bruce, too. If Coulson is betting on him, it’s probably worth my pay.”

“That’s the spirit!” Stark says with entirely too much enthusiasm.

“I will be _very_ glad to take your money.” Natasha smiles amiably and Clint shudders for a moment before he remembers that she hasn’t wanted to kill him for a long time by now.

For now, he’ll just have to hope that Bruce steps up to that genius title and fesses up first. Or that Tony cheats and drops him a hint at some point soon before the unreleased sexual tension kills them all – for fuck’s sake, he doubts that Bruce ever got laid since that certain accident and Steve doesn’t look like the person who got laid at least since he got un-frozen. Including the previous seventy years, that’s a hell of a long time, too.

Well, he figures, as long as between the two of them they actually don’t break the bed (or worse, the entire floor) when they actually figure it out, there can’t be any harm in this whole Rogers and Banner dating deal. 

End.


	39. mcu; steve/bucky; alien!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bucky gives him a tight nod, but then he grips Steve’s hand with a strength that no one whose arm was almost torn out of his body half an hour ago should have. “Punk, if your stupid plan implies that I’m goin’ in and leave you here, you can forget it.”_
> 
> _"You have to go.”_
> 
> _"Not without you," Bucky hisses, sounding like he’s not going to accept the alternative._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the aforementioned character meme; an anon left me Ellen Ripley, this happened. If I hadn't watched Alien ages ago last time it'd have probably been longer.

For having come up with the plan in more or less two minutes, Steve figures it’s less half-assed than it could be. Not as if he can come up with a better one, not when the ship is crawling with Chitauri, the only survivors other than him are Bucky and the cat, and Bucky’s left arm is all but useless - and it’s a miracle that it’s still attached to Bucky’s shoulder in the first place. It’s also a miracle that Bucky’s still on his feet, for that matter - Steve doesn’t know how long it’s going to last, which is another reason why he can’t waste more time coming up with a better plan. Now, if only there weren’t  _two_  chitauri stationed in front of the only emergency shuttle they can reach in reasonable time.

"Right," he whispers, grabbing Bucky’s good hand and giving it a squeeze, "I’m going to get in the hallway and distract them. While they’re busy fighting me you get yourself into the shuttle and  _leave_. There’s some kinda stasis chamber in it that they told me could heal up anything, so you just get yourself inside it and it’s going to fix the arm. Got it?”

Bucky gives him a tight nod, but then he grips Steve’s hand with a strength that no one whose arm was almost torn out of his body half an hour ago should have. “Punk, if your stupid plan implies that I’m goin’ in and leave you here, you can forget it.”

"You  _have_  to go.”

"Not without you," Bucky hisses, sounding like he’s not going to accept the alternative.

Steve smiles despite himself. “I hope you can shoot with your right arm, then,” he relents, and he knows that if the both of them get out into the hallway there’s a pretty high chance that they both won’t survive it, but if the entirely too wide grin Bucky sends his way is the last thing he sees before going, well, he could do a lot worse.


	40. mcu; bruce/natasha; pre-canon magic mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Bruce sees a red-haired girl in his mirror for months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the Halloween prompts for [sereppu](http://sereppu.tumblr.com/), whose prompt was _BRUCE/NATASHA CAUSE THAT'S HOW I ROLL RN APPARENTLY AND LIKE SLEEPY HOLLOW?? WORLD BEHIND THE MIRROR THING (I ALWAYS FOUND IT CREEPY AF)?_. This is... probably weird. And idk how creepy it turned out to be also idk if I write this ship halfway decently but I'm cleaning house so here it is. XD

The first time Bruce sees the red-haired girl, it’s in his own bathroom mirror. He’s going through the motion and doing something as non-glamorous as flossing his teeth before crashing for the first time in thirty-six hours. Never mind that he’ll have to get up in another seven and he’s still behind with work, but he can’t possibly face the people supposed to fund his program without having slept for two days straight.

He’s three quarters through it when suddenly he’s not seeing the bathroom anymore behind him. Or himself, or his own mouth. He sees an empty gray room, with a girl who can’t be older than sixteen kneeling in the middle of it, wearing a black tactical suit. He only sees her back, with her red hair wrapped up in a bun, and he hears something in – is that Russian?, he thinks it is. Then the girl turns towards him, and stares into his mirror or  _whatever it is_ , and says something, but he can’t hear it over the other sound, and then it’s all gone and he’s staring into his own teeth again.

He really needs to sleep more, he thinks before heading straight to bed.

–

For the next few months nothing happens. Then on the day Betty tells him that there’s a likely chance her father might cut them even more funding, he comes back home completely exhausted and wondering how the hell he’s supposed to convince the department to at least find him a test subject. Unlikely, since there’s no way they would meet the security parameters.

He figures that at least he should shave before going to bed – his three-day beard itches and he doesn’t want that to be a bother while he sleeps, too.

One moment he’s shaving over the left part of his jaw, the next he hears  _music._

_Is that Swan Lake_? He thinks it is. He was never that fond of ballet but his mother used to love that one. She always used to play it at home when his father wasn’t around. And now the mirror isn’t reflecting his bathroom anymore again – he can see a stage, now. If he’s not wrong, it’s – _the Bolshoi theatre_? And the red haired girl is on the stage, in a full ballerina get-up, but – but she’s lying on the ground, a gunshot wound in her side, and then she’s been dragged away by men dressed in black.

Before they do, though, she stares straight at him, again, and the says something, and this time he hears it. Something like  _pomogi me_ , but he doesn’t speak Russian and he couldn’t know, and then she’s gone along with the stage.

_What’s wrong with me_?, he thinks, and then he realizes that he cut himself.

For a moment he curses his father for always favoring electric razors – there’s a reason why he uses an old-fashioned razor for shaving – and then he sighs, goes about disinfecting the cut and patching it up and then goes to bed.

The next morning, though, he can’t help it – he finds the one Russian scientist on the team and asks him what  _pomogi me_  means, if he heard it right.

_It means help me. Where did you hear it?_

Bruce says it was in a movie and tries not to think about it again.

–

Except that it’s hard, when the next time he’s in the department’s bathroom washing his hands he sees the red-haired girl snapping someone’s neck.

Then he sees the gray room again and a man dressed in black breaking one of her arms in the mirror in Betty’s living room, and the girl looks at least ten years younger.

Then she shows up at age eight (she can’t be older than that, she  _can’t_ ) practicing hand to hand combat with another man dressed in black in the only mirror they have in the lab.

In Betty’s bathroom’s mirror, he sees her killing some guy she was supposedly on some kind of date with when she looks barely sixteen – she put poison in his vodka shot.

Every time, she always looks straight in his direction and says  _pomogi me_.

Every time, Bruce feels sicker.

The day after he sees her handlers – because that’s what they have to be, right? – force her to kill one of the other girls that had been trained along with her is the day he realizes that he’ll never find a volunteer for the gamma rays experiment.

He says he’ll do it himself just so that they don’t cut the last of the funding.

–

There’s a dirty, half-broken mirror in the motel room he’s paid for on his way to Greenland.

The red-haired girl, who looks in her mid-twenties now, is being led into the empty gray room by force. The men leading her in are shouting, always in Russian, and – Bruce is tired of this. He’s also  _this_  close to the kind of anger that usually means a hulk-out. Never mind that he’s been feeling like that a lot lately, and there’s a reason why he’s going to Greenland to try and use the only bullet he has in the gun currently hidden at the bottom of his duffel bag.

He can’t do  _anything_ , so why the hell is  _he_  the one seeing this? Never mind that he can’t be hallucinating it at this point, but there’s no way it has a scientific explanation, and he’s given up on finding one.

He punches the mirror out of pure frustration, not really expecting much to happen –

And then he blinks and he’s suddenly  _inside the gray room._

For a moment, there’s a certain eerie stillness – the men are staring at him, the girl is staring at him, and then there’s a voice shouting instructions in Russian that come in from the ceiling, and then the men take out a gun.

Bruce laughs and figures that at this point letting himself get angry won’t really matter, will it?

He turns towards the girl, and shouts  _run_  as his clothes grow increasingly smaller and his body starts to  _hurt_  and then he sees nothing anymore.

–

He wakes up in an unknown bed which is a lot softer than the crap motel one he had left behind on the other side of the mirror. If that’s what happened. He doesn’t have a clue, but the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is the girl sitting next to his bedside, her expression carefully blank.

He glances at the ceiling and then at his surroundings as he sits up on the bed. Outside it’s snowing, it looks like it’s some other motel room except that every written word around it is in Cyrillic and the room is completely sparse.

He sighs and turns towards the girl again.

He clears his throat.

“Uhm. Hello?” Damn it, that sounded downright pathetic. Does she even speak English, he wonders, and then –

“I owe you,” she replies at once with just the hint of an accent.

“You – no, wait, you  _owe_  me? That’s not –”

“They would have killed me in the best of cases,” she cuts him off, staring up at him again. Bruce holds that stare for a moment, then looks back down at his hands again and that’s when he realizes he’s half-naked.

And that he’s only wearing his tattered trousers.  _Ah, shit._

“I wouldn’t want to know the worst option, except I guess I do,” he mutters.

“You do?” She doesn’t seem surprised.

“I – I’ve been seeing you. For years. Didn’t they – implant memories into you or something like that?”

The corner of her mouth twitches almost imperceptibly upwards. “So  _someone_  was seeing me, then.”

“Uh, you didn’t know? I suppose you would have. I mean. You asked for help, didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t know if it would work,” she says, her voice still carefully even. “But I suppose it did.”

He’s about to ask  _what_  was supposed to work, and then in a blink she’s straddling him, her hands going to his naked shoulders. He realizes that she might have long, delicate fingers, but she has a damned strong hold. And then she legitimately grinds against him and –

“Wait, wait a moment, just – what are you doing?”

She looks down at him as if he’s completely daft. “I  _owe_  you a debt and I plan on repaying it.”

“And – oh,  _damn_ , okay, listen, let’s just – can we start over?”

“… Start over?”

Bruce doesn’t know who were her handlers, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t regret whatever he did to them while hulking out.

“Listen, the thing is – I was in Canada until I touched a mirror and landed in your little shop of horrors, I have no clue where we even are, I have at least the US Army searching for me and I’ve been on the run for the last three years, and I don’t know if you saw what I turn into when I lose control, but as far as I figured out, sex is  _not_  a good idea.” He takes a deep breath, then looks back up at her again. “Now, I suppose that you might be on the run as well, and if you want to come with since it’s two of us I guess I won’t say no, also because it can get pretty damn lonely, but – I don’t really need to – to do  _this_  kind of repayment, all right?”

For a moment her carefully neutral expression betrays  _something_  – surprise? She definitely wasn’t expecting him to refuse.

“So, how about – how about we actually  _introduce each other_ , and then you tell me where we are, and if you  _really_  want to do something from me you could find me something to drink or eat? Because – doing  _that_  really is exhausting and I’m not even sure I can get up right now.”

Which is not a lie at all – every part of his body is hurting like hell.

“… There is tea in the cupboards, I think,” she says after a moment of silence.

“Tea would be great, but – let’s just do this properly, shall we? Bruce Banner. I would say nice to meet you, but I’ve seen you in those damned mirrors for years by now, it feels just weird.”

He holds out a hand. For a good fifteen seconds, she just stares at it as if she doesn’t know what to do with it. Then she reaches out and grasps it in her own, shaking it firmly, and – and then she smiles only wide enough to see a flash of white teeth.

“My name is Natasha Romanova,” she finally says. “We are in a safehouse in Saint Petersburg, which will not be safe in approximately forty-eight hours, but if we’re gone before then we should be fine. I can safely say it was  _very_  nice to meet you, Bruce Banner. And – I suppose your terms are only reasonable. So – shall I prepare your tea?”

“I’d be delighted to try genuine Russian blends,” he says, and then she moves away and goes for the cupboard, turning her shoulders to him.

“Aren’t you afraid?” He can’t help asking as she pours water into something that is clearly not a teapot nor a boiler and which he’s sure has an actual name but that he can’t recall right now.

“Of what?”

“I mean. You saw what I turned into.”

“Is it acceptable to call you Bruce or you would prefer Mr. Banner?”

“I think we’re way past formalities, Natasha.”

“Well then.  _Bruce_ , I was starting to think you might not fall under the  _most Americans are complete idiots_  stereotype, but if you keep on asking such dumb questions, I might change my mind. Every person who was in that room when you came in through the mirror is dead. Except me, of course. I would be a complete idiot if I was afraid now, would I?”

Bruce has no retort to that, and so he lies back on the pillows and watches her make tea with her deadly, delicate fingers, and he doesn’t find himself missing the things he left behind in Canada at all. For a moment he wonders if he should ask her what is the deal with the mirrors – she seems to know.

But for now he really doesn’t need to know that. Something tells him they’ll have plenty of time.

 

End.


	41. mcu; steve/bucky; modern au, hipster!bucky + punk!steve being dorks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You do realize this is entirely ridiculous, don’t you?”_
> 
> _It’s not like Bucky’s expecting any answer, not when he’s keeping an ice pack just above Steve’s split lip, and if only the idiot had ran the idea by him before getting his lip pierced Bucky would have definitely convinced him to put the damn thing somewhere else. Who pierces their lips when they spend half of their time picking fights where they get their asses handed to them anyway?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the birthday prompts extravaganza - [hardyngharry](http://hardyngharry.tumblr.com/) asked _idk if you've read any modern!au stevebucky fics with punk!bucky but in those steve is always the tiny hipster guy and idk i thought it'd be cool if he could be a punk (as well?) (tiny or not idk doesn't matter) since he was always the one picking fights etc._.

“You  _do_  realize this is entirely ridiculous, don’t you?”

It’s not like Bucky’s expecting any answer, not when he’s keeping an ice pack just above Steve’s split lip, and if only the idiot had ran the idea by  _him_  before getting his lip pierced Bucky would have definitely convinced him to put the damn thing somewhere else. Who pierces their lips when they spend half of their time picking fights where they get their asses handed to them anyway?

Right. Why is he even asking himself the question, it’s been years by now and he should know better. Of course Steve would.

On cue, Steve grunts something against the ice pack and Bucky doesn’t understand a word of it.

"Ridiculous  _how_?” Steve finally manages to say when Bucky stands up to change the ice pack - this has gone warm by now. “If it’s about the get-up -“

"It’s  _not_ , though you really should have thought ten times before putting a ring right where you usually get punched.”

Steve has the grace to look embarrassed at that -  _at least._  He damn well should. As if Bucky would find ridiculous that Steve needs him to step in all the time when most of the time he dresses in cheap leather and has faded blue dye in his hair - it’s not like since Steve found out that he liked the fashion he has changed his habits at all. He picked fights with people bigger than him, helped grannies across the road and rescued fucking kittens from trees way before he decided to try leather and became the only person in their school who wore Ramones t-shirt because he actually  _liked_  them and owned some records. It’s not like Bucky would give a shit about that.

Bucky gives more of a shit about Steve surviving their senior year without ending up in an ER that he or his mother surely can’t afford.

Meanwhile his knuckles  _hurt_  - well, at least it’s the only part of him that’s slightly damaged and he doesn’t have bruises anywhere else. The good thing about  _Bucky’_ s own get-up is that no one ever assumes that  _he_ ’s the one out of the two of them who can pack a mean left, or better: no one assumes that one out of the two of them can actually do that. Too bad - he took boxing classes until midway through high school, and maybe it doesn’t show because he likes to wear sweaters a size larger than the one he actually should wear, but it does work well when you need surprise on your side. Or to get some asshole to stop beating on your best friend since kindergarten. Good thing blood wasn’t spilled this time - he’s damn tired of washing it off clothes that he had spent some good amount of time ironing before putting them on.

Blame him if he wants to look like someone who actually looks at what they wear when they open the closet in the morning.

"Your hand,” Steve says when Bucky sits next to him again and starts putting the ice pack against the almost-purple patch of skin just next to his lip.

“Your face is a lot worse off, punk.”

“How about you stop being a jerk and let me look at it?”

“I wasn’t the one getting punched in the face three times. Leave it, we can look at it later.”

“ _Bucky._  Let me wrap them up.”

“Your face is still purple. Maybe later.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like it didn’t take twenty minutes to get here. Putting more ice isn’t making a difference and you know that.”

“Fine,  _fine_ , knock yourself out,  _Steve.”_

At that he drops the ice pack into Steve’s hand and leans back against his couch - good thing that Steve’s mom isn’t in tonight or she’d be freaked. She’ll definitely freak out tomorrow when she sees Steve’s face at breakfast, he has no doubt about that.

Steve stands up, the small chains hooked to the back of his jacket clinging against each other, and then he comes back with a first aid kit. He drops the jacket on a chair, then sits back next to him. Bucky moves his right hand in Steve’s general direction, figuring that he’ll catch it - and Steve does, taking it in between his long, pale fingers delicately. Bucky looks down at him as he carefully checks for scrapes and then runs the ice pack all over his bruised knuckles - he’s holding his hand as carefully as he holds his charcoals when he’s sketching and Bucky swallows without saying a thing. Steve has nice hands, and Bucky would really like it if he stopped risking breaking his fingers at every given opportunity - he’d go further down that train of thought, but then Steve starts taping up his fingers, with that same care, and Bucky finds himself staring at the chipped black polish on Steve’s nails.

"You should re-do it, you know,” he says, if only to break the silence.

“Well, it wouldn’t come out that better.” Which is true - for being  _good_  at painting, Steve is a disaster at doing his own nails, but Bucky figures that it has to be a different thing to paint a picture. Still. And the guy obviously won’t ask his mother because there’s a limit to everything.

“I could do that,” Bucky offers, shrugging. “As long as you don’t try to convince me to put that on.”

“Why? Blue would make you look  _real_  good, Buck.”

"Shut the fuck up, Rogers. I’m  _not_  painting my nails any color.”

Steve snorts and doesn’t press it - good thing that. When he’s done with his hand, though, he doesn’t drop it - rather, he tangles their fingers together carefully and reaches out with the other, grasping at Bucky’s oversized gray sweater and dragging him closer.

"Fine. And how about I buy you a frappuccino after you’re done?”

“You  _hate_  Starbucks,” and maybe that wasn’t what someone with more sense would have answered.

"You don’t, though.”

“As long as I don’t have to drag you out of another alley before we even get there.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure I can take another one in the same day. And  _don’t_  say I’m finally listening to reason, jerk.”

"I wouldn’t dream of that. Well, I won’t pass the occasion to let you buy me my strawberrry frappuccino then.”

“Do  _I_  have to buy strawberry  _monstrosity_? Can’t I just give you the money and -“

"Forget that. You’re buying, you’re going all the way.”

“Fine, fine.” He’s obviously trying to sound annoyed, but then instead of letting Bucky’s hand go he drags it upwards and brushes his lips along his bandaged knuckles, so it’s not exactly working.

Bucky doesn’t even try the act and just grabs the lapel of Steve’s leather jacket and yanks forward. He keeps the kiss slow and as light as he can - damn Steve for getting his  _lip_  split, though he has to admit that the piercing right  _there_ wouldn’t be a bad idea at all, if not for high punching risk.

He takes his sweet time. Then he leans back against the couch. “Well then, punk, go get the damn polish. I want my  _strawberry monstrosity_  already and you aren’t doing anything to speed up the process.”

Steve shakes his head almost fondly and stands up, heading for the room, not before grabbing the ice pack again and putting it back on his face.

Well, good, Bucky thinks. At least he  _seems_  to have grown some preservation instinct.

 

End.


	42. mcu; steve/bucky + avengers team; truth or dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Bucky is fed up with Natasha's attempts to make him fess his feelings to Steve, until he isn't anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the birthday prompts extravaganza - anon wanted _what about stucky high school au where they're playing truth or dare or never have i ever or some kind of drinking game at a party?_. Aaand like they're playing truth or dare the way I used to do it in high school, it's basically a mix with spin the bottle. You spun the bottle and the person it landed on had to pick truth or dare, which I gathered isn't the usual way of doing it? Anyway. Have some fluff.

Natasha is  _so_  getting her second-best friend privilege revoked the moment this stupid game is over.

 _Yes_ , it has to do with the fact that she has apparently took it upon herself to  _make you fess up, Barnes, because the sexual tension between the two of you is frankly bothering everyone else except you two, and everyone is about done, so unless you do something_ I _will._

Clearly Bucky hadn’t done anything in the week since they had this conversation, because he's  _not_  jeopardizing his relationship with his actual best friend because Natasha thinks that he’s not the only one pining. That was entirely not enough to even make him consider it, and so he didn’t, and maybe he should have realized that Nat having warned him exactly a week before Clint’s birthday party was not a coincidence.

Now they’re all sat on the ground playing some stupid mix of fucking truth or dare and spin the bottle, and Nat has obviously been waiting for the bottle to stop in Steve’s direction when it was her turn for at least a fucking hour. And now that it happened - _  
_

“Truth or dare, Steve?”

  _Pick dare, please pick dare_ , Bucky thinks, and  _obviously_  Natasha knew Steve wouldn’t.

“Truth.”

 _Of course._  Everyone knows that while Steve would never back down from a dare he’s also not the kind of person who gets embarrassed with the usual  _truth_  questions. Not that Bucky isn’t sure that Natasha had a plan for both cases, but still.

“When was the last time you kissed someone?”

Steve goes red in the face at that, but then he clears his throat and damn, Bucky wants to be anywhere but here. He knows the damned answer.

“Never?” Steve says tentatively, and Bucky doesn’t even pay attention to the next five minutes - after Stark says that it’s entirely unacceptable that he reached sixteen without planting a solid on someone and really, he could set him up with someone or  _pay_  someone or give him lessons, he tunes out the ranting and tries not to think about how much he wishes  _he_  could be the first person  _planting a solid_  on Steve.

Not that he’ll do anything about it, but still. Finally Stark shuts up and Steve spins the bottle - it lands on Bruce,  _thank God_ , and for the next couple rounds everything goes swimmingly until it lands on Clint. Bucky doesn’t even mind that - Tony dares him to do something dumb, Clint does it and then he spins the bottle again, and then -

Then it lands on  _him_ , and the moment he sees Clint smirking he realizes that  _of course Natasha shared whichever plan she came up with with him._

Fuck his life.

“So, Barnes, truth or dare?”

Yeah, he thinks, talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. He knows what Clint’s going to ask if he says truth. Why can’t he just back off?

“Dare, damn you.”

Clint smirks so wide it’s almost a joke.

“Well then. Since it's  _my_  birthday and I can’t honestly in good conscience let this evening end when one of my friends still hasn't  _kissed anyone_  past freshman year -”

“Clint, maybe -” Steve interrupts, bless him, but Bucky knows it’s not gonna work.

“I dare you to fix that. After all, better the devil you know and all that jazz, right? And no way you’re doing that in private, everyone knows you’d just pretend to go through with it.”

Steve opens his mouth, probably to give in an out.

“Steve, don’t you dare protesting. Everyone knew the rules when we sat down, right?”

“Maybe he’d rather have someone he’s picked himself,” Bucky mutters.

“Barnes, was that the sound of you backing out?”

“Fine, Barton,  _fine._  I hate you, by the way.”

“‘Course you do. Come on, doesn’t have to be anything overtly complicated. There you go, we can wait.”

Good thing that at least Steve is sitting next to him. Bucky takes a deep breath and turns to look at him - damn, Steve blushing and looking at him with a slightly panicked expression is everything he doesn’t need.

“You know, we don't  _have_  to,” Bucky says, lowering his tone. Not that the others won’t hear, but it still gives him an illusion of privacy. Also, if Steve refuses, that would definitely confirm that he’s not interested that way, and at this point - well, Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever  _move on_ , but at least he could put his heart in peace.

“No, that’s - that’s fine. Let’s - just, let’s?”

Of course  _this_  would be what makes Steve stammer out of anything. Bucky huffs and moves closer so that their sides are touching, and why is it that it all feels so weird when they usually touch all the time? Well,  _not like this_ , though.

“Well then,  _let’s_ ,” Bucky says, and then he takes in a deep breath and puts a hand on Steve’s cheek, feeling his cheekbones under his fingertips (will the guy ever put on some more healthy weight, that’s what Bucky would like to know), and then Steve closes his eyes and -

Listen, Bucky would have just gone in for a peck. It’s not like he’d have frenched someone who didn't  _want_ it, especially when it's  _Steve_  and he’s spent year hearing him say that he wanted his first kiss to matter and be with someone he was sure of, so he wasn’t going to go all in.

But the thing is that the moment his lips touch Steve’s, Steve lets out a small sigh and parts them just slightly, and then he feels Steve’s fingertips tentatively brushing against his temple, as if he’s not sure of how to do with them but he'd  _really_  like to move them to his hair -

And there’s a limit to someone’s self-control.

Before he’s even realized it, Bucky’s hands are both on Steve’s face, and his tongue is slipping inside Steve’s mouth, and for a moment he expects to be pushed away but then Steve’s hands do in fact to go his hair and Steve drags him forward and  _shit_  he’s kissing back like someone who’s been waiting years for this.

Maybe in another moment he’ll actually make sense of this, but it’s not as if right now he’s thinking coherently. So he just puts his mind into it, his thoughts stuck at  _yes yes yes_ while Steve moves forward and Bucky kisses him some more and -

“Woah, Barton, you should have dared them to get a fucking room.”

That’s when Bucky realizes that Steve is halfway into his lap right now, and that they’ve been fucking frenching in front of another six people.

The kiss breaks off.

But - but Steve doesn’t move an inch.

 _Well then_.

“Well, yeah, that’s why  _we needed an intervention_ ,” Clint replies, and at that point Sam and Bruce are snickering, Natasha is smirking in ways that are frankly terrifying, Tony looks halfway impressed and half weirded out, and Thor -

“Well, Clint, maybe they  _should_  be given a room, all things considered. They might as well be excluded from the next round.”

“I absolutely don’t see anything wrong with that suggestion. Barnes, you know where the guest room is.”

“But -”

“James, I would go to the guest room,” Natasha interrupts, still sounding like someone who’s just won the hugest betting pool in existence. The tone also hints that if they don’t there’ll be consequences to pay. So Bucky just - he stands up, grabs Steve’s hand, helps him out and gets the hell out of Clint’s living room. _  
_

And instead of going to the guest room, he drags the two of them outside - he needs fresh air.

When they finally are out, he lets Steve’s hand go, even if he’s kind of reluctant, and 

Steve’s fingers close back around his before he can.

“How long?” He asks, because at this point just an idiot would deny the evidence.

Steve’s cheeks go slightly red and then he looks down at the ground.

“Uh. Since - since forever, actually? I’m not even sure I remember when I realized it. You?”

“Same,” Bucky mutters. It’s not actually true. He  _knows_  he realized it the first and only time he dragged Steve to a double date during freshman year and his date’s friend didn’t even look at Steve the entire evening, at which point he had thought  _she doesn’t know what she’s missing_ and had to admit to himself that  _he_  had wanted to be in her place. But he had been feeling like that for years before then. He just knows he did. So it’s not even technically a lie.

“Huh. So Sam  _was_  right when he kept telling me to spill.”

“ _Sam_  did that?”

“He’s been doing it for months.”

“Well, he must have been in league with Nat,” Bucky sighs. “We really were dumb, weren’t we?”

“I don’t see why you should cry over spilt milk when we could be making up for lost time.”

“Why, so you aren’t mad that -”

“Bucky, I didn’t have a first kiss that good in my wildest dreams. How about you just don’t?”

“I can work with that,” Bucky says, and then he pushes Steve up against the wall and proceeds on kissing him the way he deserves to be kissed all over again, thoroughly and carefully enough to make his knees go weak, and maybe he moans a bit into Steve’s mouth when Steve’s hands grab a fistful of his hair and tug, and he’s pretty sure someone is wolf-whistling from upstairs - right, the living room has a window that would show exactly what’s going on.

Whatever. He doesn’t care. Actually, he might even forgive them this time.

 

End.


	43. mcu; bruce/tony; ear kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Tony makes a move that Bruce hadn't anticipated. He's entirely not adverse to it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for a meme on tumblr - it was a list of different kisses and people would send you a ship with one of them. This was for [ask-human-frus](http://ask-human-frus.tumblr.com) who wanted science boyfriends and ear kissing. Nothing belongs to me as usual also this was written before AOU so it's unrelated/has no spoilers whatsoever.

“- so yes, thank you, this is why I need someone to check my equations when I haven’t slept in three days, and you know, while that cut  _totally_  suits you, let me tell you that, it’s a shame you keep them covered.”

“That wasn’t a problem and - wait,  _what_?”

It’s not exactly news that Bruce at times can’t follow Tony’s train of thought even if  _he_  had seven hours of sleep, ate both breakfast and dinner and hasn’t had industrial quantities of coffee for three days straight, it’s happened, but this is a new one.

“Your  _haircut_. Pretty nice, considering that you do it yourself - why, excuse me, it’s plenty obvious, never mind that I know for sure you haven’t been out to cut your hair since you moved in here, and as stated it suits you, so I’m not going to drag you to my barber the moment I’m finished here, but I don’t see why you have to hide the ears.”

“I’m  _hiding my ears_.”

“Why, look at it and tell me you’re not.”

Bruce shrugs and glances at his reflection in one of the mirrors in the lab just because if he doesn’t Tony will remind him to do that every other minute. And - well. Okay, yes, he has a few curls covering the upper part of his ears on both sides, but he doesn’t see the problem.

“Right, but - it’s not like I had planned it? It just happened. And what’s the deal with my ears?”

“ _What’s the deal_ , there’s no deal, it’s just a pity you cover them up. You’d look nicer showing them off. They’re  _nice._ ”

“Tony, are you sure you shouldn’t be getting some sleep?”

“That’s also not untrue, but I’m not saying that because I’m sleep-deprived, I’m saying that because I’ve been thinking that for - probably a long time. I guess I shouldn’t say how long or it _might_  look slightly creepy. But I swear it wasn’t meant to be creepy.”

“It’s  _weird_ , it’s not creepy. Who even looks at ears?”

“Excuse me,  _I_  do,” Tony proclaims after switching off his tablet and stalking up behind him. He stops when he’s right there, then he brings a hand up and puts the hair Bruce had covering his right ear behind it - it’s long enough that it stays there.

“See? Looks a lot nicer. And actually, now that I notice it, it’s a lot more practical.”

“ _Practical_.”

“Sure. I can do this without getting hair in my mouth,  _excuse me_ there,” and then he moves to his side and - and first he bites down a bit on his earlobe, then he presses his lips to it for a very, very long moment and then he moves away before giving him a pat on the hip.

“If you’re wondering what the hell I was doing, you should probably know Pepper says she’s more than willing to share with you, never mind that sometimes I think she’d be plenty happy if there was sharing all around, and you don’t have to say anything, but just think about it. While I go get some sleep, I suppose. By the way, if you stick around for another hour or so make sure the stuff processing in the corner over there that should go on Clint’s new arrows doesn’t explode, yes? And cut that hair.”

And then he kisses the spot he bit  _again_  before calmly strutting out of the room.

Bruce is still not sure that he’s processed everything, and he has to stand there and  _think_  for five minutes before getting the entire thing straight, and then he can’t because of course whatever chemical was being processed for Clint’s arrows causes a minor explosion and he has to put it out - good thing he was expecting it, he needs to make sure Tony doesn’t try chemistry when he’s sleep-deprived.

And the thing is that he does that while smiling to himself rather than cursing the moment he accepted the invitation, and  _maybe_  he had kind of never put much hope into Tony ever offering something like what he just did because  _well_ , he wasn’t going to hope to ever kiss someone who’s already involved anyway.

He thinks he might talk to Pepper soon, and  _maybe_  he’ll think about cutting his hair just that tiny bit.

End.


	44. asoiaf; theon/robb; modern au, 'what happened doesn't change anything'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon is convinced they broke up and Robb doesn't agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon for a meme on tumblr where you'd get a line from a list and a ship - the line in question for this one was 'what happened doesn't change anything'.
> 
> Warnings: very blandly mentioned past Theon/Ramsay, implies that Theon cheated on Robb under the influence because Ramsay slipped something in his drink.

“You know, you can be hard to find when you want to.”

Robb doesn’t know if he should feel sad or not about the way Theon’s shoulders jerk upwards when he notices that he slid into his booth, opposite him. Considering that there’s a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the side of the table and that Theon looks like complete shit, Robb should probably feel sad.

“Who told you I was here?” Theon slurs, not looking up at him after one moment of eye contact.

“Your sister did, who else?”

“Shit,” Theon just says, and then reaches for the bottle.

Robb just moves so that his elbows are resting on the table.

“You know you don’t have to be here?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Robb. I  _know_  I fucked up, okay?”

“Except that what happened doesn’t change anything?”

 _That_  gets the desired result - Theon  _does_ look up at him in utter disbelief. “How doesn’t it.  _How_. I fucked -”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I should be angry at you for  _cheating with me_  with a guy who caught you at a low moment, who’s hated me for years or at least since my dad stopped being business partners with his and who  _drugged your damned drink_? Like, you both disappeared before I could ask explanations and you couldn’t even put a sentence together, don’t you think I didn’t ask around? Some guy said he thought he saw him slipping something in that drink. And then you were already gone who knows where else and I’ve been worried out of my mind for three days and it’s obvious that there’s a  _lot_  wrong, so how about you stop crashing on her couch and come home instead?”

Theon just keeps on staring for a moment, then looks down at the empty glass. “It just - I don’t even remember half of it,” he slurs again. “But - really?” And it’s just wrong that he should sound  _that_  hopeful, as if Robb had some real godforsaken reason to be angry at him. But he’ll deal with that later.

“Yeah,  _really_.” He doesn’t say  _do you think I’d throw five years out of the window because you might have slipped up once and you didn’t even do anything wrong yourself_  - there’ll be time for that later.

He holds his hands out instead, moving the glass out of the way.

“You know,” he keeps on, “turns out I sleep like shit if you don’t make sure I know how cold your feet are or if you don’t put your elbows in places where they hurt.”

“… What?”

“I slept, what, three hours the past two nights. Because I kept waking up and I thought it was weird I didn’t have your elbow stuck in my side. Also, I burned the eggs.”

“You  _burned_  the eggs?”

“Guess we forgot why you’re the one in charge of breakfast. I also set off the fire alarm. At six AM. Stannis wanted to murder me since it was his free day.”

Seriously, Robb is never going to want to be on the other side of his neighbor’s righteous anger at being woken up at the crack of dawn. 

Theon tries to keep a straight face but then he lets out a half-laugh that is a lot better than Robb would have taught, and then he drops his shaking fingers into Robb’s palms.

“Right. Guess ‘m coming home with you since you’re  _that_  fucking useless. Just - in five minutes. Or fifteen. My head’s splitting.”

“No one’s in a hurry,” Robb says, standing up and moving to the other corner of the booth, and maybe it takes them an hour to actually leave, but the moment Robb sits, Theon pretty much folds against his side and Robb has no force of will to move. So he just sips some of the leftover whiskey and waits while he rubs at the back of Theon’s neck with his free hand - after all, he never said they had to go  _right now_.

 

End.


	45. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern high school au + 'don't fucking touch me'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon's classmates are terrible people and Robb is a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [valentinevilleforts](http://valentinevilleforts) for a meme - the prompted line was 'don't fucking touch me'. Halfway through it I realized I was writing a somewhat AU of this old Swedish movie I've seen ages ago named Fucking Amal - do of that what you will. XD

“Theon -”

“No.”

“Come on, it’s not -”

“Don’t say it.”

“Okay, I won’t, but - you can’t stay in there forever.”

“How so.”

“For one because we need to get back to class in five minutes, and for two - because this school sucks, this bathroom has just two stalls and you’ve been in this one for fifteen minutes and there’s a line of people who kinda might want to murder you right now?”

“Another reason not go out then.”

Robb sighs at the comments that happen the moment Theon says that.

“Come on - oh, for - listen, can I come in?”

“No.”

“Theon, we’ve known each other for  _fourteen years_ , do you think I give a damn.”

For a moment there’s no answer, then. “Fine.  _Just_  you. And don’t try to drag me out. Actually, don’t fucking touch me at all, okay?”

“Fine, fine, I swear, now let me in, okay?”

Before Theon unlocks the door, Robb sends a more or less desperate nod to the poor philosophy teacher substitute in whose class they’re supposed to be and who obviously understood that it’s either him convincing Theon to get out or more drama, and then slips into the stall and locks the door behind him, not paying attention to the  _Stark just get him to free the damned bathroom_  comments he’s hearing.

Then he turns towards Theon, and - well, shit, he hadn’t even seen the entire deal go down, but he can see he wouldn’t want to get out.

“Shit,” he says, “wasn’t that shirt new?”

Theon’s expression turns downright pained. “Don’t say it. Just - don’t. Is he still around?”

“No, Lannister dragged him to the principal. They also wanted  _you_  to say your side of the story.”

“No.”

“You do realize you can’t get that idiot kicked out or suspended if you don’t go, right?”

“I’m not showing up in front of anyone like  _this_. Fuck this, I  _smell_  rotten.”

“Well, yeah, that’s  _rotten egg_ , of course you would. But that’s not the point - I mean, if they see you  _covered in that_  I think it might be a no brainer whose side they will believe at this point.”

“If you think I’m going out so everyone can take a picture for posterity, you’re wrong.”

Shit, Robb thinks, Bolton  _really_  managed to find the biggest button he could push.

“Okay, let’s switch shirts.”

“ _What_?”

“You take mine, I’ll take yours, I’m going to the principal with you. So we both look ridiculous.”

“My shirt is  _covered in rotten egg_ , Robb.”

“I know that, thank you?”

“Who’d even want to go around with that on?”

“No one, but the point isn’t that I want to do it. So, you’re handing it over or not? The quicker we do this the quicker we can just grab our stuff, go home and take a shower. I doubt that they aren’t letting us leave early.”

“… You mean that, don’t you?”

“Do you think I like to waste breath when I say this kind of thing?”

“Right,  _right_ , let’s do it.”

Robb doesn’t say  _finally_  just because it would be way too mean, and it’s not like it’s Theon’s fault here, so he shuts up, takes off his clean t-shirt and hands it to Theon. He kind of wants to gag as he buttons up Theon’s formerly nice black dress shirt, because it really smells so bad he could throw up, but he volunteered and he’s going to go through with it.

Still, he can see Theon looking at the door like he’s hesitating.

“I guess half the school will be outside, won’t it.”

“Do we give a shit?” Robb replies instead, handing out a hand. It’s not like it’s a secret - they never were  _open_  about it, but they never went great lengths to hide it either. For a moment Theon’s eyes go soft instead of sporting that completely pissed off look, and then -

“Your funeral,” Theon says as he wraps his fingers around Robb’s. Right. They’re sticky. With whatever is inside rotten eggs.

Not like Robb cares, though, and he’s smiling openly as he opens the door and walks out.

People  _do_  stare, but he really can’t care less.

 

End.


	46. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au where they watch potentially compromising movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein Robb and Theon watch _The Bridges of Madison County_. It might get teary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for when I was taking Robb-related prompts - an anon wanted _Robb gets emotional while watching a movie with Theon_. I went for this one because it's like the only love movie I've ever seen that will make any man watching it cry without fail pretty much. Also spoilers for it obviously.

Shit. Shit, he’s  _not_  going to break down at this.

Robb knew he should have just picked another film from the list he has to watch for his class about Eastwood’s movies, but it was the only one he had in the house - his  _mom_  bought it, for fuck’s sake - and Theon had just shrugged and said that the dumb romantic movie was  _not_  his idea, but whatever, Eastwood can’t be that bad, right?

So they were watching it, and more or less making fun of the overt sappiness in certain bits but not as much as he’d have imagined, but then the last part had started and - right. Fourth day and then he’s gone. Whatever, for a love story it was kinda well done, and he liked it more than he should have -

And then Meryl Streep’s car stops behind Clint Eastwood’s.

Shit. He’s seen enough of this kind of movie with Sansa to know how it goes. And he’s seen the beginning - he  _knows_ she’s not going to leave with him.

But then her hand goes on the handle and he looks in the mirror and for a moment he thinks _just get out of the car and leave and go on with your life you don’t deserve being stuck there just get out of the damned car_  -

And then the red light turns green and Clint Eastwood drives away and shit,  _shit_ , he knew that.

“Robb?”

“Just wait a moment.”

“Robb, what -”

“I said  _wait_  - ah, shit,” he says, his voice breaking - he knew he shouldn’t have talked.

“Are you actually  _crying_?”

“Fuck it, she should have left with him!”

“Well, yeah, any woman with eyes would have dumped her husband for him, so what?”

“ _Stop that_ , you aren’t making it any fucking better. Damn, this is embarrassing,” he says, wiping at his eyes while  _he can’t fucking stop crying what the fuck is with this movie he’s never ever going to watch it again_.

And then it cuts to present and to her daughter throwing away her ashes and he starts crying _worse_ , and then Theon puts an arm around him before pulling him against his side and handing him a packet of paper tissues.

“As long as you stop making fun of me for having this stuff on me,” Theon says as Robb blows his nose.

“I’m never doing that again as long as I live. Fuck this movie.”

“Why, I liked it. Even if she was an idiot. Who dumps  _Clint Eastwood_?” Theon replies promptly, and Robb’s attempt at elbowing him is very weak, but at least he does laugh some.

He’s definitely  _not_  choosing this for his final paper, though, if he can help it.

 

End.


	47. asoiaf; sansa + theon/robb; modern au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb and Theon have a stupid argument and Sansa saves the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written for [ayaawesome](http://ayaawesome.tumblr.com) a while ago when I was taking Robb-related prompts on a whim - the prompt was _Robb is upset because he and Theon had an argument about sth stupid and Sansa comforts him (and also forces him to talk to Theon)._

“Robb, I  _know_  that you two never once argued even on what cartoons to watch on Sunday, but you do realize that it’s not the end of the world?”

Right, maybe she should have put it another way - he already had been crying his eyes out for the previous hour, now he’s starting again and really, Sansa never realized how much he could pull off that ‘I’m a kicked wet red kitten’ look with so little effort. It’s just because he never has any reasons to do it, which is a good thing because if he were a worse person he’d get away with anything the moment he realized he could pull that face.

“This wasn’t  _that_  stupid,” he sobs, sounding kind of embarrassed at it.

“If you just  _said_  what was it about…”

“It was my fault, all right?” He snaps, and then grabs another paper tissue from the packet at his left.

“I’m  _sure_  you didn’t mean it, whatever that was,” she says, and then sits down next to him on his bed and puts an arm around him - for all the times he pretty much went and cheered up her and everyone else in this house when they were kids it’s time someone does it for him.

“I didn’t, but I fucked up, okay?”

“Fine, and  _what happened_?”

At that he starts all over again and it takes Sansa another five minutes to get the story out of him - looks like Theon’s dad being a dick had interfered with some plan they had for weeks and so Robb might have told him something really insensitive about possibly saying no to his dad for once, which had resulted in Theon flat-out heading home without even answering.

“I’m an idiot, I’ve  _known_  for years that his dad’s a dick, why would I even say something that insensitive, I just -”

“How about you call him and apologize?”

“Yeah, I don’t think he wants to talk to me right now.”

Sansa sighs. “If I know him  _some_ , I’m sure there isn’t one day he  _wouldn’t_  want to talk to you.”

“I fucked up, okay? Maybe I should just let him have a moment -”

“Robb, you’re hopeless,” she cuts him, and then takes his phone from his nightstand.

“What - no, you’re not going to -”

“ _Yes_ , I’m going to.”

She presses two on speed dial - she  _knows_  that it’s Theon’s - and keeps the phone out of Robb’s reach as she runs to the hallway. Not that she has to wait much - Theon picks it up  _on the first ring_.

“Robb?” He asks, soundingout of breath. And like he might have had his own crying session.

“Not exactly,” Sansa replies. “But he’s been sulking and having a  _moment_  for the entire afternoon, never mind beating himself up because he thinks he was a dick to you. And he thinks you don’t want to talk to him. Guess he’s wrong?”

“Uh - er, yeah, can you put him on?”

“Sure thing. And don’t worry, he  _is_  sorry about whatever it is. And Robb,  _you’re welcome_.”

She squeezes his shoulder before dropping the phone in his hand and leaving - she doesn’t need to eavesdrop on them. Even if she  _is_  going to call Jeyne to commiserate about her brother’s hopelessness the moment they patch things up.

 

End.


	48. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au, good morning kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon wakes up with an hangover, but it's definitely not bad news all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [ayaawesome](http://ayaawesome.tumblr.com) for the writing kisses meme - she wanted Robb/Theon and good morning kiss.

_Shit I’m never ever drinking again_ , Theon thinks as he opens his eyes for a moment and then suddenly closes them again the sunlight peering from the window. His head is pounding, he can still taste whiskey somewhere in the back of his mouth, he woke up because of the alarm and seven thirty on a Sunday morning is too goddamn fucking early and considering that he’s recalling all the reasons why he got completely smashed yesterday, he should probably turn on his side and trying to go back to sleep.

“There’s aspirin on the nightstand,” Robb’s faintly amused voice comes from his left, and -

Wait. His  _left_?

He sits up at once, in spite of his pounding headache, and - yes, he’s in Robb’s bed, and Robb is lying over the covers on the opposite side of the bed. Already dressed and everything, but the pillow looks slept-in so he obviously shared the bed with him and -

 _And_  -

“You got me  _aspirin_?”

“Get it, maybe,” Robb replies. “And yes, I bought it when I went out this morning. And you know, while I’m not going to regret you that you were drunk out of your mind yesterday, I wouldn’t advise doing it again.”

“Wait,  _you’re not going to regret it_? What the hell did I do?” He doesn’t remember anything other than calling Robb and telling him that he had argued with his dad  _again_  and that he was going to be at the pub.

“Well, you told me that you were there drowning your sorrows in alcohol because you somehow got into some argument about  _me_  with your dad, but then you ended up saying that _now he knows so I’m fucked._ At which I asked you  _what_  did your illustrious father know.”

“And - what did I say?”

Robb smirks and moves closer. “Now, I sadly can’t stay to discuss it because as you most probably  _don’t_  remember Sansa’s classic ballet show for school is at nine AM and I have to be there, and it takes an hour to get to that godforsaken place,  _but_  I couldn’t leave without doing something.”

“… Okay?”

And then Robb shakes his head, moves closer to him and pulls at the back of his neck, dragging him forward until their lips meet, and  _shit_  Theon must have the most hideous morning breath in existence but Robb doesn’t seem to mind as he runs his tongue along his bottom lip once and pressing a bit closer - it doesn’t go forward, but when Robb moves back Theon thinks _damn it that was the kind of kiss horrid romance novels are made of_ , and he’s - grinning?

“You might have told me you’ve been in love with me for some five years before throwing up on my shoes, and you’re lucky it was an old pair. That stated, I really have to go, but since you don’t remember what happened yesterday, I’ll leave you to try it. And by the way, if you’re here when I come back, I look forward to doing what I just did every morning,  _Bye_ , and drink that aspirin.”

And then he’s standing up and leaving, waving as he walks out of the door.

Well.

_Well._

Theon doesn’t know if he wants to remember what happened or not, because he suspects it’s  _highly_  embarrassing, but he’s certainly not going anywhere until tomorrow, and he smiles to himself as he swallows down the aspirin.

 

End.


	49. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au, awkward kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb makes sure that he and Theon don't get outed by mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [buckygreyjoy](http://buckygreyjoy.tumblr.com/) who wanted Robb/Theon and awkward kissing. Idek what this is but it happened. XD

_Fuck my life_ , Theon thinks the moment the bottle he just spun lands on Robb.

 _Fuck. His. Life_. No, seriously, he knew he shouldn’t have come to Margaery Tyrell’s birthday party at all, but - well, it was the first time in years that someone from their class had invited _both_  him and Robb, and so he had figured that maybe he could go, and it had all gone more or less fine until someone said that they should totally play spin the bottle. And the thing is, since Margaery is  _popular_ , all of their class and at least the one in the next year are there, and the _other_  thing is that he and Robb have gotten together two weeks ago and there’s a reason why only Robb’s family knows. So if they kiss now he’s probably  _not_  going to manage to keep it PG because he  _knows_  how he gets around Robb, and if they out themselves everyone will know _and_  his dad will most likely find out, and  _that_  is the main reason why no one knows except a few trusted people.

“Awww, Greyjoy, you don’t want to kiss your bff or what? Too chicken? Too macho?”

Theon is going to  _murder_  Joffrey Baratheon.

“Doesn’t seem to me like you’d jump on the chance to,” Theon replies, “but never let it be said I can’t take a challenge.”

“Wait, wait,” Robb says, “I  _really_  have to go to the bathroom. I swear I’m not trying to skip out, I’ll just do it when I’m back, yes?”

Theon has no clue whether Robb’s stalling or not, but when he’s back five minutes later everyone forgets that Joffrey was supposed to kiss his sister -  _gross_ , they’re probably going to allow cheek kissing for that - and they stare at the two of them again.

“So,” Margaery says, “we’re waiting.”

Well, shit. Theon leans closer to Robb, who had been sitting next to him already, and -

“Go for it,” Robb whispers, “don’t worry. No one is going to know.”

 _What_ , Theon thinks, but then he figures he should just do it, and the moment he presses his mouth to Robb’s, Robb parts his lips and -

And Theon only manages to kiss him for two seconds before tasting fucking  _cream cheese frosting from the red velvet cupcakes_  all over Robb’s tongue - shit, Robb knows he  _loathes_  the taste and he actually ate a cupcake and didn’t swallow the frosting, and the moment it happens Theon has to lean back in automatic feeling like he’s going to vomit.

“Fuck, Robb, that was  _gross_ ,” he groans.

“Well, at least he wasn’t a chicken about it,” Joffrey sighs, and then Theon looks up at Robb who just smiles, winks at him and quietly swallows the cheese frosting.

A moment later, he gets a text.

 _Don’t worry, when we get home I’m going to brush my teeth twice before making up for it_.

Theon smirks to himself and presses himself a little bit closer to Robb. Nothing that overt, but enough to pass on the message, and at least knowing that kissing Robb in gratitude would be a very bad idea is keeping him from having any reaction he might regret.

 

End.


	50. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au, male models

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an au meme for [crystalhoneywhereyoubeen](http://crystalhoneywhereyoubeen.tumblr.com/) \- the prompt was Theon/Robb, male models. 
> 
> Warning: extremely vague reference to past Theon/Ramsay with even more vague mentions of Ramsay being a control freak.

There’s just one good thing about this darned photoshoot, Theon thinks as he dashes inside the car that’s going to bring him to the location, and it’s that he’s going to do it with Robb Stark, who happens to be the only person in the business that he actually likes talking to, never mind that he can  _stand_  these days, never mind - well, their friends-with-a-lot-of-benefits arrangement, which is actually the one thing he’s happy about. Even if these days he’s starting to think it’s not just  _friends_ with benefits, but for now he’s not going to jeopardize it.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this horrid, but since he got the call yesterday (‘you have to be in San Francisco tomorrow, there’s a cab picking you up in half an hour’,  _thank you very much Asha_ , he really needs to tell his sister to try and stop finding him jobs where he has to fly to the other side of the world at the drop of a hat, except that he most probably won’t tell her anything like that because he knows that if she okayed it then it’s a good job. And after his brother got him stuck for a month with a guy who pretty much is the reason why he sees a therapist when he can, he’s not letting anyone else find him jobs) he ended up with two delayed planes that made him miss the coincidence. He forgot his laptop charger at home and couldn’t buy one at the airport because he had to find another plane ticket, then that plane left late and so now he has exactly half an hour to get on location, and he has to change in the back of the fucking car - thankfully it’s not underwear modeling.

By the time the car finally stops somewhere on Lombard street, he has put on his artsy fake-ripped tight jeans, a pair of faux leather boots that have to be a size too small for his foot, a white shirt a size too large instead and a leather jacket  _two_  sizes too large. He needs to ask Asha for what damned magazine this shoot is for, seriously. Something indie. Probably.

He stumbles out of the car to find that he’s probably the last one - the photographer and the rest of the circus are there already and Robb is, too, and - okay, it has to be some softcore artsy gay magazine because Robb’s not dressed up in his same fake-casual style. He’s wearing a full-on corduroy three-piece suit, all gray charcoal if you don’t count the red tie, which  _seriously_  looks good on him, and why the hell would they be dressed like  _that_  in San Francisco if not for that kinda magazine? 

“I hope I’m still in time?”

“Five minutes to spare,” the photographer says. “Good. We can start now.”

He barely manages to say hi to Robb before the photographer starts telling them how many shoots they need and how they have to touch each other and this and this and that and yeah, they definitely have to pretend they’re a couple. Or something. When the lecture’s over, they go stand at the corner they’ve been told, and finally they have a minute while the photographer goes to check if everything’s set up the way he wants it.

“So,” Theon says when he’s sure no one’s eavesdropping, “when are you leaving?”

“Sometime tomorrow,” Robb answers. “And we’re supposed to be done by six. Why, you have a proposition?”

“I could buy you dinner. As long as you keep that suit on.”

Robb snorts and moves closer, and Theon isn’t surprised at all when he feels his hand slip into the back pocket of his jeans.

“As long as you let me repay the favor in London, I’m game.”

“Sounds great. And if we’re on the same plane out, I might just take you up on it after we land.”

“Fine by me.” Robb is grinning openly as he answers, and Theon smirks back and thinks that he can totally endure three hours wearing these godforsaken small shoes if he envisions what the two of them will do in one of their hotel rooms after dinner.

Now that he’s thinking about it, this is the tenth shoot they do since the year started. Maybe his sister is booking him shoots with Robb on purpose. Might be. He’s definitely not going to complain to her about this one at all.

End.


	51. asoiaf; robb/theon; modern au, model + photographer au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is definitely the best photographer Theon's ever worked with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [ayaawesome](http://ayaawesome.tumblr.com/) who wanted _model AU with Theon as the model and Robb as the photographer_ ; this has brief references to what would probably qualify as eating disorders and to a stint in rehab which I didn’t elaborate about but whose backstory reason was ramsay bolton so thread with caution in case it’s the kind of thing you don’t wanna read, but really this is pretty much your usual fluff.

“Is it  _really_  necessary? I mean, does the shirt have to be open?”

Theon can hear the cringe in his tone of voice, and the disapproving stare the PA in front of him sends his way should say everything. He shouldn’t have asked that, he realizes a moment later when said PA launches in a tirade about how whoever’s in charge of the advertising had envisioned the campaign exactly like that and so he’s going to damn well keep the shirt open, never mind that for someone who hasn’t worked in six months he can’t complain  _that_  much, especially if he wants them to consider him for another shoot, and he’s about to just tell her to stop, fine, he’ll take off the damned shirt, when -

"What’s going on here?”

“Oh, Mr. Stark!”

The PA immediately goes red in the face and starts recounting the entire deal, obviously making it seem as if  _he_ ’s being a prissy non professional, and  _damn_  that’s the photographer and  _damn_  Robb Stark is actually the kind of guy he’d have asked out a year ago, and now he just wants the ground to open and swallow him whole.

“So I was just pointing out that there are contractual obligations and -”

“ _Fine_ , Barbrey,  _fine_ , you got the point across, now see if the set is ready and we’re going to solve this nicely.”

“But Mr. Stark -”

“ _Go_.” The PA shrugs and turns her back on them, and Stark breathes out in relief before turning to him. “Damn, I’m sorry. She’s been trying to get into my uncle’s pants for  _months_  and so she always overdoes it when  _I_  am the one in charge of the shoot, but - never mind her. So, what’s the problem?”

“It’s nothing really, I was just -”

“Hey, stop right there. Don’t mind her, she’s just - not exactly flexible. And I like to make people comfortable if I have to work with them, so just tell me your problem and I can see if it’s something we can fix, all right?”

And the guy sounds so  _earnest._  Theon maybe gets why everyone he knows who’s worked with him hopes to shoot as much as they can with him in charge - he had thought it was because Robb’s very easy on the eyes, with the ginger hair, the blue eyes and every single line in his face looking gorgeous, but he’s starting to see it might not be just that.

“It’s just - she said that in half of those pictures I should have my shirt off. And - well, damn it, guess it’s just easier to show you.”

He sighs and lifts up his t-shirt so that Robb can have a look at his chest and see that his ribs are still plenty visible even if he put on a lot of healthy weight in the last six months. Robb visibly grimaces - he probably knows about all the reasons why he even had to put on healthy weight in the first place and didn’t work for six months, especially since the main reason used to be in his same field.

“I mean, it’s not even that I don’t want to show it off, but - it’s not exactly a sight. And no one told me I was supposed to be half-naked or -”

“Calm down. I think I know what to do. Just go get ready and come out on the set in a few. Don’t worry, Barbrey’s not having a say in it.”

And then Stark winks at him and goes back towards the set.

Well, okay. He goes back to make-up, lets them fuss over him and fix his hair and then puts on the leather pants he’s handed - no shoes, apparently - and the white shirt that he’s supposed to keep open. Then he heads for the set, where Robb is waiting next to the background - it’s some black and white modern art thing he supposes. Considering he’s only wearing black and white he also supposes it’s a black and white shoot, which is  _exactly_  the best way to make sure that everything that’s wrong with his chest would be noticeable.

“Oh, here you are. Okay, wait, button it up.”

“But Mr. Stark -"  _Barbrey-_ something starts, and Robb holds up a hand.

"It’s  _my_  shoot, and I did read the guidelines. They said it has to look  _sexy_ , not that he has to show off his chest. Back off and let me work.”

Theon doesn’t say a word as he buttons up the shirt.

"Okay, great. Now, let me just do a thing.”

And then Robb’s right up in his personal space, opening buttons and then passing them through different holes, and then arranging the shirt  _someway_  - it’s a bit large on him, so he has plenty of room for it. At one point he takes a step back, then grabs his left arm and starts to roll up his sleeves until he reaches his elbow and sees the stylized squid tattoo right below it.

“Nice,” Robb says. “Is it recent?”

He probably noticed that the skin around it is a bit red.

“Uh. Yeah.” He doesn’t say,  _I got it because my mother drew it for me and had it ready when I came home from rehab and even if I know getting tattoos is a bad idea in this business I just couldn’t not. “_ Is it going to be a problem?”

“All the contrary.” Robb smirks and rolls the sleeve downwards until it’s half hiding the tattoo, then he unbuttons the cuff on the other one and only rolls it up until it’s resting just above his wrist.

“Is this a good compromise?” Robb finally asks as he steps back, and -

Well,  _damn._  He has opened the first and last two buttons of the shirt and then put all the other ones in the hole below the one where they were supposed to go, so it’s all skewed, but artistically so. The only skin showing are a bit of his stomach and his neck, but his chest is safely covered.

“More than good,” he replies, feeling a knot in his throat.

“Great. Then I guess we can start. Okay, just lie back against the background.”

It’s the quickest shoot he’s ever done - it’s forty minutes in total but it feels like ten. No one argues, Robb doesn’t make him re-do the same shoot fifteen times, whenever he has to change clothes he always rearranges everything so that it follows the guideline but it doesn’t have to show off parts of his body he’d still rather keep hidden, and he’s almost sorry when it’s over.

He’s about to go back to his dressing room to get back into his regular clothes when Robb walks up to him.

“Well, I hope it wasn’t too bad?”

“Are you joking? I’ve never done a shoot this relaxing. Seriously, it’s been great. I’d totally do it again.”

“Considering that you haven’t complained once, differently from most other people I have to work with, I won’t be the one to refuse if there’s the occasion. Hey, do you want to see the pictures? I guess that if there’s any you don’t want us to use, you can say it. I took a bunch, it should be no problem.”

“Seriously?”

“Of course. It’s no problem.”

So he follows Robb and waits for him to print out the shoots - it takes him maybe ten minutes to dump a bunch of pictures into his hands. He looks at them and -

Well, shit. It’s all black and white, obviously, but the thing is that considering that he spent four months shooting  _exclusively_  for a control freak and that by the time he decided to ignore the contract and pack his bags he was severely underweight and addicted to a couple of antidepressants that he never got a prescription for, he’s spent the last six months in rehab looking at his own reflection and thinking that he’d never get back into business. Every time  _something_  just looked off to him, until now, because in every damned picture he looks at, he looks good. He looks the way someone who models is supposed to and not like what he sees in the mirror every day (there is always something wrong in what stares back at him). Damn, a couple of shots wouldn’t have been different if they had been taken before Ramsay Bolton, or so it seems like.

“Wow. You’re good,” he says lamely as he glances at the last one.

“Why, thanks. You can keep them, by the way, I have the copies on digital.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Sure. Bring them home if you want to. So, they’re all viable?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they are. Just - I didn’t think they’d come out this nice.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you look pretty damn good.”

“Wait, what -”

“Come on, you could hear the  _because I don’t look like that_  at the end of that sentence. You do. And by the way, I’m pretty sure I could have pulled the same thing off even if you didn’t have that shirt on.”

"… Really.”

“Really. I could give you a proper demonstration with  _my_  camera back at home, if you were into it.”

And the thing is - Robb’s not pushing at all and it’s obvious that he’s flirting in good fun and that if Theon says no he’ll just take it for an answer. And the other thing is, Theon  _likes_  Robb. He really does like Robb.

"What if I was into it?”

That evening he finds out that Robb was only half-joking - he really has an old Nikon with  _real_ film at home, and he  _really_  uses it to take pictures of him without the shirt off, and after they wreck the sheets on Robb’s bed, he goes to develop them in his spare room or wherever.

And then he comes back with a fresh batch of black and white pictures and Theon has no bloody clue of what Robb did with the filters but he  _did_  pull that off. Maybe it’s the contrast or  _whatever_ , but if you look at his chest you can see that while he’s still too thin for his own tastes, there is maybe just the barest hint of his ribs showing up. Certainly it doesn’t look like you could touch some of them if you tried. _  
_

“Can I keep them?” He asks, wishing he could say something a bit less useless.

“Well, sure. I have the negatives after all, if I want more than one copy.” And the tone suggests that Robb might really want more than one.

“Never mind that if you wanted to be my guinea pig for trying filters out, I wouldn’t be the one refusing.”

The idea of someone taking pictures of him on a regular basis has never sounded more appealing, Theon thinks as he grabs Robb by the lapels of his shirt and drags him forward for a kiss.

 

End.


	52. asoiaf; robb/theon; canon divergence, 'you almost died' + 'war's end' kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon wakes up to extremely good news, not counting that he might be bedridden for a bit. But it was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [jeannyblack](http://jeannyblack.tumblr.com/) who wanted, for the kissing meme, Theon/Robb and war’s end kissing and I almost lost you kissing. This is like the AU to end all AUs.

When Theon opens his eyes and assesses the situation in front of him, he doesn’t know what’s worse. Could be the insisting pain at his hip where he’s sure someone stuck their sword while they were trying to get into the Red Keep, or it could be Robb sitting at his side, fixing him with a glare that says  _you might not be dead yet but I might murder you myself._

But he’s also lying on a fairly comfortable bed, so he supposes that it didn’t go bad, did it?

“Uhm, did we win?” He asks after Robb just stares at him for entirely too long.

“Well,  _obviously_ , since you’re here and not  _dead_ , and by the way, who told you to  _jump in front of me when you see people trying to stab me with their swords_?”

“No one, but maybe I just didn’t want to let you die?”

“You’re an idiot,” Robb huffs, “and you made me lose twenty years of my life from that scare, but anyway,  _yes_ , we won, and Stannis is trying to calm down the situation before he finds a septon to put a crown on his head, and thanks to all the gods from this morning I’m not a bloody king anymore. Good riddance. That said, you can’t move from the bed for at least the next three days or so the maester says, and you can  _forget_  that I’m letting you do anything different. And by the way, Stannis says that he’ll be more than happy to go to the islands and teach your father that you don’t try to do rebellions twice, but that’s another problem entirely. And by the way, I shouldn’t be saying it because as stated no one told you to fucking  _move in front of me_ , but thanks for that.”

“Uh, well, that’s a lot, but - then it seems like it’s all good news, so maybe you could stop glaring at me, Stark.”

“You could have  _died_ , Theon, I’m going to damn well glare at you.”

Theon is about to tell him that in between him and someone who pretty much got disowned the moment their dad marched against the North again and who’s alive just because Robb refused to take his head there was hardly a choice, but he keeps his mouth shut - he has an inkling that Robb would just get madder.

“Glaring suits Stannis better than it suits  _you_ , Robb,” Theon sighs, and then Robb shakes his head and in a moment he’s on the bed, on top of him, his mouth slamming against Theon’s and kissing him against the headboard, his hands going to Theon’s hair and grasping fistfuls of it, and for a moment Theon forgets about the raging pain in his hips and kisses back with as much force as he can muster, which isn’t a lot, and then he actually is breathless too soon into it, but Robb can see it and he leans back after biting down on his lip hard enough to hurt.

“Robb, you know I  _didn’t_  die, right?” Theon breathes out, his voice coming out strangled.

“Yes, and I’ve been told that you weren’t going to for good one hour ago, so maybe you should just stop talking,” Robb answers right against his mouth, and then he kisses him again with no less fervor.

And Theon goes with it, thinking that as far as near-death experiences go and mostly as far as the aftermaths of said experiences go, this?

This is totally the best he could hope for.

 

End.


	53. asoiaf; robb/theon + talisa; modern au, jealous kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Theon really hates Robb's ex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [charleywng](http://charleywng.tumblr.com/) who wanted Theon/Robb and jealous kiss. I might have jumped at the chance of throwing Talisa under the bus for reasons.

“Oh, damn it,” Theon groans the moment he sees  _her_  walking towards their Starbucks table.

“Come on,” Robb says under his breath, “I can’t exactly ignore her, right?”

“Robb, she  _dumped_  you in front of the entire school and you felt like shit about it for three months, never mind that she bailed out on the whole school play thing because she felt uncomfortable playing your fucking girlfriend and now you want to play nice?”

Robb shrugs. “There’s no reason to hold grudges, is it?”

Theon would like to add  _yes, and she’s coming up to say hi just when I heard she broke up with her last boyfriend_ again _and of course she has to do it on one of the few times I can manage to have an entire afternoon free and I don’t have anyone home asking where I’ve been_ , but he can’t say it because fucking Talisa has come up, said hi to Robb as if  _she_  wasn’t the one who broke the guy’s heart last year and then proceeds on ignoring him the same way she had when she and Robb were together.

Obviously.

And the thing is that other than being too nice for his own good, Robb is also completely clueless at this kinda thing, because it’s obvious that fucking Talisa is  _flirting_ with him shamelessly while he tries to just - well, not be a jerk to her. Meanwhile Theon drinks his coffee and seethes, because damn it but  _he_  hadn’t relished picking up the pieces after  _she_  fucked it up, especially when he had been pining for years and wishing he was in her place. And fine, now he  _is_ , and fuck it but the more she makes sweet eyes at Robb and apologizes and asks how he’s been, the more he wants to punch her in the face. Never mind that he knows that Robb would never go back with her, but it  _still_  is grating on his nerves.

“And so, what have you been doing lately? I haven’t seen you around in school as much.”

‘Course she didn’t. Because after  _she_  bailed out on the drama club and her substitute ended up being Myrcella Baratheon, who is a perfectly lovely girl but whose mother caused a mayhem showing up at every rehearsal and making everyone else in the play feel miserable, Robb ended up quitting the drama club even if he actually was good at it. Of course he’s not around in school for extracurricular activities.

Theon is fucking fed up.

“He’s taking a break from piling up extra credits,” he says before Robb can answer.

“Uh, sorry?”

“He’s also been having plenty of fun,” Theon keeps on, and then he really hopes Robb doesn’t mind but he can’t exactly discuss it, and he puts an arm around his waist and drags him in for a kiss.

He doesn’t even give a shit that they’re in the middle of a Starbucks full of people they know - he uses tongue, and he grabs at Robb’s waist dragging him  _very_  close, and he puts his other hand behind Robb’s neck and proceeds on giving him the closest replica to the kind of embarrassing kiss you always find in Sansa’s ridiculous romantic movies that she insisted to watch during the Stark family sleepovers a few years ago.

When he’s done, he turns and looks straight at Talisa, who is staring at him like she personally wants to smack him in the face. He smiles, instead. “I’m making sure of that,” he finishes, and then she stands up and excuses herself before leaving.

“Wow, if I had known that I’d have done it ten minutes ago,” Theon says without even bothering to lower his voice.

“You’re insane,” Robb tells him, but from the tone of voice it sounds like he didn’t mind at all.

“Hey, you’re fine with it, yes? I couldn’t ask, but -”

“Do it again, how about it?”

Theon smirks to himself before doing  _just_  that. Talisa can watch, for all he cares.

 

End.


	54. asoiaf; theon/robb; asos-adwd canon divergence, returned from the dead kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He hadn’t thought he’d have ever seen Robb again. Not even in the next life._ Or, where Robb is Azor Ahai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon and [striped-coat](http://striped-coat.tumblr.com/) who wanted Theon/Robb and *returned from the dead* kiss. I do realize this turn of events makes zero sense but I didn't know how to resurrect the guy ops.

He hadn’t thought he’d have ever seen Robb again. Not even in the next life.

( _He was slain at the Red Wedding_ , Ramsay had said.  _They sewed his direwolf’s head to his own body. Fitting, wasn’t it?_ )

He had thought to himself, in those moments when he couldn’t remember his name, that he should have died with him before trying to quell down the thought.

He had thought wrong.

When someone walks into Winterfell’s main hall without invitation during Ramsay Bolton’s wedding and proceeds on slaughtering half of the guests with a sword that looks made of light and is almost too bright to look at, most people who are spared can’t even stare at it. It burns too bright.

But somehow it doesn’t hurt his eyes - good thing that it was the only part of Reek’s that Ramsay hadn’t somehow touched - and so that’s why he’s the first that realizes it. Because that sword, even covered in blood, lights up the man’s face behind his hood, and when he walks up to his meager seat on the table Reek looks up at him, figuring that he’ll at least die looking upwards, and -

“ _Robb_?” He almost shouts when he sees him, and the man stops dead in his tracks, staring down at him, and it can’t be anyone else, he’d know him anywhere, and before Robb can say anything he’s quick to bare his neck. He knows that it’s what he deserves. Hells, he’d even welcome that.

But.

“ _Theon_?” Robb asks, sounding  _pained_ , and that bright sword never meets his neck.

Robb won’t say anything about what happened during the wedding. On his part, Theon is more than willing to tell him everything that went down since they last parted. Robb hears it out.

Then.

“I have to go North,” he says. “Do you want to come?”

He says yes as he cries his eyes out.

–

No one questions it.

–

He’s cold, on the way to the Wall. But he was always cold before, anyway - the dungeons were hardly comfortable. But then one evening Robb walks into the tent he’s been staying - a small, cramped one that still was more than he’d have ever asked for himself, and sits down in front of him, and Theon can feel heat coming off him.

He doesn’t ask,  _what happened to you -_ that’s what Robb had done while still in Winterfell.

“Why are you even here?” Theon can’t help sobbing, and then Robb’s fingers touch his thin, frail wrist and he's warmer all of a sudden.

“Do you know how many people have called me by my name since the wedding?” Robb replies, his voice strangely calm.

“Have people been calling you something else?”

“You wouldn’t imagine,” Robb says. And then. “And the answer was, one person.”

Theon stays still as Robb’s other hand touches his shoulder and Robb presses up to him ever so slightly. All of a sudden he doesn’t feel cold anymore at all, and Robb feels like a small furnace against him, and Theon can see that there’s a closed gash on his throat and scars everywhere under his stubble and  _on his hands_  for that matter, but the blue of his eyes is always the same, and the red of his hair is as well, and -

“That was you,” Robb says, almost sounding pained, and when he presses his lips against Theon’s so delicately he can barely feel it, Theon doesn’t know if he can trust himself not to be dreaming this. And then he figures that he might as well make use of this and he presses back, just a bit, not opening up because he knows he has broken teeth everywhere, so different from the last time they kissed (when he was whole and his hands were whole and he smiled at all the wrong things), but he still does, and he doesn’t know he’s crying into Robb’s warm hands until he feels him brushing tears from his cheeks.

“He told me you died,” he sobs when it’s over. “And I should have been with you the whole time, I should -”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Robb cuts him. “But he also wasn’t right. And you’re with me now, aren’t you?”

 _Yes,_ he mouths against Robb’s lips a moment later, and gods help him, he doesn’t care to know what’s going on or how this is happening but that’s exactly where he’s going to stay.

 

End.


	55. asoiaf; robb/theon; canon missing scene, goodbye kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“See you soon, Stark,” Theon says as he turns towards Robb and then walks out of the tent._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [thequeenrhaenyra](http://thequeenrhaenyra.tumblr.com/) who wanted 'goodbye kiss' and Theon/Robb for the kissing meme. Again, I'm really sorry.

“Patrek Mallister is waiting outside,” Robb says as he walks into Theon’s tent - there are a few neatly packed bundles on the floor and Theon has just put on his cloak - it’s one he hasn’t used often, so it’s not as worn-out as the garments he’s been putting on throughout the campaign.

“I  _know_ ,” Theon huffs in reply, tying the cloak and not quite reaching for his baggage. It looks like he’s stalling, and it’s  _weird_ , since he looked very eager to leave yesterday evening.

“I don’t think he minds waiting, but - is there something wrong?”

“Wrong? No - no, there isn’t,” Theon replies, a bit too quickly maybe, and Robb thinks he gets it - after all, it’s the first time he’s allowed to go home in  _years_ , who wouldn’t be nervous even if they had no reason to?

Robb shakes his head and walks up close to Theon, and he really shouldn’t be doing this here and now because Theon’s late already, people are outside and someone could come in any moment, but - he puts a hand behind Theon’s neck and pulls him in for a moment, their lips meeting for a quick kiss that he breaks almost as soon as it starts before letting his forehead fall against Theon’s.

“Come on, don’t stall. The sooner you leave, the sooner you come back and we can pick this up where we left off. How about it?”

“I can live with that,” Theon answers a moment later, and he takes a step back, but then he leans down to press his lips quickly to the corner of Robb’s mouth before grabbing his luggage and heading outside.

“See you soon, Stark,” Theon says as he turns towards Robb and then walks out of the tent.

Yes, Robb thinks,  _see you soon_.

 

End.


	56. asoiaf; theon (implied robb/theon); post adwd, last kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Robb Stark’s funeral is a sorry affair, as far as a king’s funerals go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon wanted Theon/Robb and last kiss for the kissing meme thing - I'm horribly sorry for this by the way. This is not the droid you're looking for if you want fluff. Also post-adwd so all the warnings and speculation apply.

Robb Stark’s funeral is a sorry affair, as far as a king’s funerals go.

It’s held in the crypts, not outside. Jon had wanted to do it regularly, with all the honors, but then some northern lord had pointed out that considering  _who_  was in charge in King’s Landing, and that Jon himself was allowed to keep the North just because he was related to  _her_ , public funerals for a branded traitor wouldn’t have been a good idea. And Jon had to relent - then again, everyone knows that the dragon queen is hardly reasonable when coming to this specific matter. Or to a lot of others.

It goes like this. Jon - he’s Jon  _Stark_  now, even if he seems to be completely at odds with the new name - says a few words while holding to his chest a nondescript chest that he was assured contained what was left of his brother’s bones. 

(They were told the body stayed up on the Twins’ ramparts until the castle fell. Theon can believe that.)

Sansa Stark is next to him, and says a few more words while holding on to his hand and trying not to cry. The rest of the audience is made of Theon himself, Jeyne, Rickon Stark - who keeps on asking who is it that died, and whenever he does his siblings look physically pained -, Arya Stark, who doesn’t join in the delivery of the speech but stands to the side with a hand on her sword (she doesn’t look sixteen  _at all_ , Theon thinks. More like thirty), Gendry Waters (who’s just standing next to her looking completely out of place), Jeyne Westerling (who cries the whole time as she clutches at her stomach, as if she wants to throw up), the survived direwolves, that friend of Jon’s from the Wall who’s now Maester (Tarly, Sam Tarly, that was his name, Theon remembers) and no one else.

There’s no statue, not yet. There’s one for Ned Stark, there’s one for Catelyn Tully (even if her bones aren’t here or anywhere anyone knows of), but for Robb they were advised to wait. There’s a tombstone, though. Neither Jon nor Sansa even try to keep themselves from crying as they lift it up and place the chest inside it before covering it up again.

Then there’s silence, until Rickon breaks it asking if it’s over now, and Sansa starts crying all over again.

“Well, we should leave,” Jon sighs, moving away from the tomb.

“You go, I’ll stay for a while,” Theon tells him, and Jon just looks at him and gives him a tiny nod before leading everyone outside.

And then he’s alone in front of the damned grave - at least there’s a name and a date of birth. He walks up close to it, looks down at the wood cover - obviously Jon still hopes to put a statue on it soon, because otherwise he’d have used a stone one.

Well, who’s going to see him do it? Theon raises it up with shaking gloved hands and there it is, a small chest with bones inside it, and that’s all that’s left, and he doesn’t even try to stop himself when a few of his tears fall down over it.

“I should have been with you all along,” he tells to the empty room before leaning down and pressing his lips to the cold, hard wood once, twice, and then he leans back, puts the cover back in its place and just drops to his knees in front of the grave.

He should leave, he knows, but instead he stays there for a long while and doesn’t say out loud, _I hope I see you soon_.

 

End.


	57. asoiaf; robb & jon + catelyn, most probably canon missing scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb is going to spend time with Jon regardless of what his mother thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon when I was taking Robb-related prompts; the prompt was _Can you write Catelyn gently trying to discourage Robb from spending time with Jon and Robb choosing to spend time with him anyway?_. Wherein I think I'm terrible at writing children but I try anyway.

“It’s not really  _proper_ ,” Mother says gently but sadly. Robb just hopes that Jon can’t hear her, but he’s pretty far down in the courtyard and they’re on the balcony. It shouldn’t be a problem.

“I guess,” Robb agrees, even if he really doesn’t. “But that’s not  _fair_.”

Mother smiles down at him and for a moment she looks a lot less sad about this. “You’re right, but not everything in the world is fair, Robb. Just think about that.”

She leaves a moment later and - Robb doesn’t know what she wants him to think. Because if he _thinks_  about that, it’s just not fair. So all right, maybe Jon has a different mother, but what difference does it make? It’s not like Jon  _hates_  him for that or anything. He just looks sad all the time and Robb really doesn’t like that look on him or anyone for that matter. Also it’s unfair to Jon anyway because some people  _do_  look wrong at him because of that. Robb keeps on thinking it makes no sense. And it’s not changing that Jon is still sitting down in the yard on his own and looking down at the ground - Robb can only see his back but he can imagine his dejected expression just fine. Right, because there were some bannermen of Father’s around the castle today, along with their children, and Robb was supposed to stay with them while Jon wasn’t. And maybe he shouldn’t have proposed to go get him, too.

Well, he thinks, he’s not going to do that again, people won’t get it anyway, but still, his mother might tell their guests that he’s thinking about what he just did or something like that, which means he doesn’t have to go back in, right?

He smiles to himself, gets down the stairs and instead of going back towards the main hall he heads out to the courtyard.

When he walks up next to Jon, he sees that he was right - he was brooding. But then Jon looks at him and his eyes go a bit wide.

“Why are you here?” He asks.

Robb shrugs. “I got bored.” He’s not going to go into details, as if he wants Jon to feel guilty about it. “Do you want to go to the godswood? They won’t look for me for a bit.”

“Oh. All right. Sure. Let’s go.”

Robb grins as he grabs Jon’s wrist and leads him forward.


	58. asoiaf; robb + sansa; modern au fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein Robb singlehandedly makes sure his sister has a great birthday when it was shaping up to be everything but.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written when I was taking Robb-related prompts - this was for [sarah1281](http://sarah1281.tumblr.com) who wanted _How about Robb playing princes and princesses with Sansa?_ This is very ridiculous and I sorta cheated out of the actual playing princes and princesses but it was too adorable not to give it a try.

“You have to do  _what_?”

Robb sighs - there’s a reason why he’d rather hang out with Theon than  _anyone_  in the school’s volleyball team. Never mind that he told Theon that he’d come to see the new  _Iron Man_  with him so he wouldn’t have gone with them anyway, he’d still have something better to do.

“I said it already. I promised my parents I’d watch my sister and her friends this afternoon and it’s her birthday, I’m not going to bail on her to go to the movies.”

“Your  _sister_? For real?” Well, he usually doesn’t mind Loras Tyrell, but sometimes he can be really obnoxious.

“Yes, and by the way, it’s not a chore. Have fun,” he cuts the conversation short, and heads back home.

Now, the thing is that their parents had kind of planned that - since Sansa wanted the all girls princesses themed party or something like that, they had just taken everyone else and went to stay at Jon Arryns’ for the night, so he’s on his own until tomorrow, but it shouldn’t be anything too hard. The house is large, he had orders to put food out while the girls did their thing in Sansa’s room and then he just had to make sure all of them got back home. Also Sansa only invited some seven or eight people, so it should all be good to go.

Except that he walks into the living room to find Sansa  _in tears on the sofa_?

“Sansa? What’s the problem?”

She cries harder and Robb hands her over a tissue very quickly - she blows her nose and pretty much manages to get the story out. Robb only gets about half of it, but it boils down to, she somehow got in some stupid argument with Margaery Tyrell who was of course invited and since Margaery is  _more popular_  (Robb shudders - popularity contests in class at  _seven_?) everyone else bailed out of her party.

Damn, his sister needs better friends.

“Hey,” he says as she blows her nose again, “you’re better off without them anyway if it that’s all it takes to bail on you. ‘Sides, who needs them?”

“What do you mean?” She sobs.

“Why, did you already forget that before you and your friends got into  _themed parties_  you used to do that kinda thing with me in the garden? Come on, go get dressed. If you’re fine with _prince and princesses_  themed party we can just have our own. And that’s more cake for the both of us, right? If we’re really getting sick I can just call Theon over and he can get the rest later. Or well, if you’re  _really_  that sad over that, if you have a dress that fits me we can keep it just princesses.”

“… Really?”

“Who even cares? It’s your birthday.”

So fine, Sansa throwing herself at him and spending the next half hour  _very_  excited to see if any of her friends’ dresses that they left here back last week fits him is kind of worth the utter humiliation of actually putting one on - sadly the only one who more or less fit him was  _purple._ At least she’s happy, and good thing he actually did get her a present so she has  _something_ to open later.

He also doesn’t mind playing  _princess_  too much after getting the hang of it, even if he doesn’t think he’ll do it again anytime soon.

_(_ When Theon does in fact come to collect cake a few hours later he laughs hard enough to cry when he sees the attire, but then Robb glares at him and he’s more than amenable to join the party  _as long as I don’t have to wear dresses, thank you.)_

 

End.


	59. asoiaf; robb + rickon + shaggydog; modern au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _All in all, maybe Jon was right when he said that a smaller dog might have been a better idea._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anon when I was taking Robb-related prompts - the prompt was _What about Robb comforting Rickon when he's scared of Shaggy?_. I'm terrible at writing both children and dogs and it probably shows but I tried. XD

All in all, maybe Jon was right when he said that a smaller dog might have been a better idea.

Or at least, Robb only knows how it went second-hand because he wasn’t there with his parents when they went to the shelter to adopt a dog for Rickon - it’s a family tradition. Each one of them got one when they turned four or five. Anyway, Rickon couldn’t go with them because clearly he sprained an ankle in kindergarten the day before, and they couldn’t reschedule the appointment. So they had gone with Jon and Arya, who clearly had to go to see some school football game later, so his parents just dropped the dog at home and drove forward.

Now, Sansa is over at Jeyne Poole’s and Bran is at Jojen Reed’s, so now it’s just Robb with Rickon, and he understands why Jon texted him a  _I’m not so sure they picked the right one but the guy in charge swore it was a good choice and Arya liked him and Dad and your mom liked him so I was in the minority, I don’t know if it should have been this big._

Right. Because the dog in question is a black Northern Inuit with bright green eyes who’s also _the same height as his brother_  who is also obviously scared shitless and clinging to Robb’s legs behind his back and clings tighter when the dog growls softly.

Well, damn it.

Robb grabs his phone and texts Jon.

_What did the guy at the dog shelter said exactly_?

Thankfully he gets an answer a moment later.

_That he had horrid owners before but they didn’t have him for long and he’s real nice as long as you’re nice to him?_

The dog growls at Ghost, who just stares at the scene for a moment and then runs away at the back of the garden. Well, Robb thinks, Jon certainly picked himself a smart one back in the day.

Well, he’s going to have to do something here or they’ll remain like this for the next two hours. He leans down and picks up his brother - damn, the kid is getting heavy, he’s not going to be able to do this much longer -, at least he won’t run on the sprained ankle.

“Come on,” he says as Rickon hides his face in his neck, “he can’t be  _that_  bad.”

Rickon says something that sounds like  _he’s scary_  against Robb’s collarbone.

“Yeah, he might look like that but I bet he’s not.”

He hopes, at least.

“How would you  _know_ ,” Rickon says moving back and sounding completely unimpressed.

“I’m sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t have gotten you a  _bad_  one, right? Just - just give him a chance, I’m sure he feels left out.”

Rickon doesn’t look too convinced, but he allows Robb to move closer to the dog. Who doesn’t even growl, he’s just staring at them.

“What do I do?”

“Really? What do you do with Grey Wind?”

Rickon glares at him some more, then he tentatively reaches down and pets the head of the dog.

The dog  _totally_  growls softly at that, but not as if he wants Rickon to stop. All the contrary.

“Huh. Maybe he’s okay,” Rickon concedes a while later.

“Right, so how about you give the poor guy a name?”

Rickon stares down at the dog some more, then Robb puts him down hoping he doesn’t try to walk. But no, he just pets him some more and the dog looks  _very_  pleased at that.

“Shaggydog,” Rickon finally declares. The dog growls softly again, his brother smiles and Robb doesn’t point out that at least Bran and Arya will think it’s improvable.

 

End.


	60. asoiaf; robb, jon and bran; canon divergence, they go visit jon on the wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Robb and Bran do, in fact, go to visit Jon at the Wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for when I was taking Robb-centered prompts - an anon wanted _Things don't go to hell AU where Robb takes Bran to visit Jon at the Wall_.

The sun has barely started to rise when Jon leaves the Lord Commander’s tower and heads out in the yard - it’s early, and not many people are around yet. There’s someone fixing up the practice targets and so on, and of course there’s two people manning the gate, but he dismisses them and says he’ll take care of it himself for the next few hours.

They leave, looking plenty grateful that they can go get breakfast earlier than they thought, and Jon stays there, the parchment safely tucked into his belt. He takes it out, re-reads it again and folds it accurately - yes, it should definitely be today, and at least no one protested when he said that for a couple of days he would be otherwise occupied. Sam can run things in his stead for a bit. He probably didn’t have to be here  _this_  soon, but the letter says that they’d come in the morning, so better safe than sorry. He just wants to be here to greet them personally, also considering how long it’s been since he’s seen both of them.

The only nuisance he gets is Satin bringing him papers that he has to sign a few times, and it’s not like he can postpone that, and so he does and keeps on waiting.

And he doesn’t have to wait for long - it’s been maybe a couple hours when he sees them coming towards the gate. Both Robb and Bran’s red hair is a stark contrast with the white and grey surrounding them. So maybe he smiles to himself a bit and walks out of the gate, raising a hand in greetings - he doesn’t see either of their faces yet, but he can see Bran waving back at him quite enthusiastically.

When they finally stop both of their horses next to him, their furs are covered in snow but Bran looks ecstatic, and  _well_ , whatever special saddle he’s using is working just fine as far as Jon sees.

“Jon! We’re here!”

“I can see it,” he replies, amused. “Would you rather greet me properly now or you’d rather get into that yard on that horse? You became a great rider, I see.”

Bran goes red in the face, and not because of the cold.

“Uh. Maybe after I walk in?”

“Of course. I’ll go open the gate now then -”

“Why, and you don’t greet me first, Lord Commander? I thought Luwin taught us _both_  manners, didn’t he?”

And - Jon turns and sees that Robb is right next to him, and gods but he did change so much since the last time they saw each other. He’s taller, and bulkier, and he can see a criss-cross of scars on his face under his beard most probably from when he escaped that blasted wedding for some kind of miracle, but he looks - plenty moved. And like he’s about to break down in tears, but not for bad reasons.

“You were behind him, I didn’t even see you get down,” he replies lamely.

“Excuses, excuses. Though well, now that I have a look in person, I see I was right.”

“About what?”

“Black really was always your color,” Robb says, and at that a few tears do spill from his eyes as he spreads out his arms.

Fine, so maybe if someone’s looking at this scene he  _will_  get teased to hell and back, because the Night’s Watch Lord Commander pretty much throwing himself at his brother  _might_  not be too dignified, but the next thing he knows they’re holding to each other so tight it almost hurts and he might be shedding a few tears himself.

“Maybe you were,” he agrees. “So, how long are you staying?” He doesn’t move at all as he asks that.

“Well, we said a few days,” Robb replies. “But I suppose that if we stayed for a week or so no one would mind. Sansa has things under control back home.”

“Good,” he says, and he thinks of what he could show them first.

But maybe not just  _right now_ , he thinks as he feels Bran’s hands move down to squeeze his shoulders. They have time, don’t they?

 

End.


	61. asoiaf; jon/ygritte; modern au, seductive kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Ygritte is very forward when she _likes_ someone and Jon thinks he doesn't mind at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for a kisses writing meme for [ayaawesome](http://ayaawesome.tumblr.com), who wanted Jon/Ygritte and _seductive kiss_.

“How are you without a date?”

Jon almost spits his coke as he turns to his right and to the person who just pretty much sided up to him - at first he thinks  _do I know you_ , but then he recognizes the red hair and blue eyes and the freckles on her cheeks, never mind the two slightly crooked front teeth - she has to be that friend of Gilly’s from middle school that he saw once at Sam’s birthday party. He thinks.

“I hate proms, I hate dancing and Sam asked me to drive him, and I figured I’d get some free alcohol. And I don’t see you with a date either. Never mind that someone usually _introduces_  themselves before asking that kind of thing.”

She rolls her eyes and reaches out - and  _steals his Coke_ , taking a long drink from the glass. _What_?

“How conformist of you. But why, sure, I’m Ygritte, and you have to be Jon Snow if what Gilly says about you. And cheer up, I’m here for the same reason as you. I mean, I was driving Gilly, not that I even attend this school. But you know, if free food makes you sulk like that maybe you should just go home.”

“Thank you, I’ll have my free food. And my Coke,” he sighs, grabbing the glass back from her.

“Too bad that the music isn’t the usual crap. I could go for a dance.”

And fine, Bryan Adams is miles better than One Direction or whatever’s hot these days, but Jon doesn’t see how it’s his problem.

“Yeah? Ask someone then.”

“Oh, do you seriously not get  _anything_? I’m asking  _you._ ”

_What?_

“I don’t dance,” he replies at once, feeling kind of out of his depth - what is she even asking, oh god he  _hates_  dancing but well, she  _is_  pretty cute, and he doesn’t dislike her attitude as much as he could, to be entirely truthful, but -

“Don’t be  _that_  sulky. It’s fun, if you try it.”

“Really?”

“Really. Also, I might give you an incentive.”

“Which would be?”

He’s  _kind_  of expecting her to kiss him.

He’s not expecting her to kiss him  _fully_ , her tongue running along his bottom lip slowly before pushing inside his mouth and running across his teeth the moment he opens up for her, and he doesn’t expect her to reach up and grasp at his hair as she pushes him up against the wall - and the thing is that he  _shouldn’t_  go for it, people are watching and the way she’s doing this, it’s entirely too heated for a damned high school prom, but she’s  _good_  at it, and when she squeezes at his ass he can’t help returning the favor and kissing back just as fervently, _really_  hoping that no one is paying attention to them.

When she leans back, she’s smirking and she has an ankle hooked around his knee, and she looks plenty satisfied with the result.

“This might happen later if you just say yes before this bloody song is over,  _Jon Snow_. So?”

“So I think I can be swayed,” he sighs, and he knows he doesn’t sound at all like he’s regretting it, but he doesn’t even care to pretend he is. The way she’s looking at him, he’s pretty sure she’d know he was bullshitting in the first place.

And he’d be entirely willing to get to know her better before the evening is over.


	62. asoiaf; tyrion/bronn; modern au (sorta hs au too), awkward kissing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tyrion is going to kill Jaime when this whole business is over. Also, he should have never assumed that college students could ever be actual functional adults - he and Bronn are the only two people in this room who aren’t college students and he’s plenty sure that the only one with some basic sense of maturity in here is his brother’s girlfriend._ Or, where Tyrion was sure this truth or dare game would end terribly except that it doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [thequeenrhaenyra](http://thequeenrhaenyra.tumblr.com) who wanted Tyrion/Bronn and awkward kissing. This has background Jaime/Brienne plus Oberyn guest starring for reasons.

Tyrion is going to  _kill_  Jaime when this whole business is over. Also, he should have never assumed that college students could ever be actual  _functional adults_  - he and Bronn are the only two people in this room who aren’t college students and he’s plenty sure that the only one with some basic sense of maturity in here is his brother’s girlfriend. But she’s  _one_  person and she’s against both Jaime and their  _fifteen_  friends.

Seriously, who the hell plays truth or dare at a  _pre-graduation party_? What are they, ten? Well, they’re  _Jaime’_ s friends. He’s probably not wrong. And he shouldn’t have come or he shouldn’t have brought the  _plus one_.

Anyway.

“Truth or dare?” Jaime asks him, a glint in his eyes, and Tyrion  _will_  murder him after this is done.

“I pass,” he settles on.

“Sorry, you can’t pass. No one’s passed until now, you don’t get to do it.”

“Like hell I’m accepting any question or dare from  _you_ , Jaime. Considering what’s happened until now. Especially when you’re drunk.”

“He’s got a point,” Oberyn Martell backs him up, thank fuck. If only he wasn’t  _almost completely naked._  "I mean, not that I mind but it’s getting damned cold and the end of this game isn’t close, you’re not exactly thinking straight when giving out dares.“

Bronn snorts from his side and drinks a sip of his beer and Tyrion tries not to look in that direction, lest someone other than Jaime finds out that he’s been harboring not exactly platonic feelings for his best and until now more or less only friend since middle school for a while.

"Fine,  _fine_ , so what if Brienne asks instead of me?”

“Jaime, don’t drag me -” She starts, but he latches to her side,  _literally_ , gosh Tyrion is happy he came if only because he can imagine Cersei’s face if she saw this and that’ll make him laugh for a damned long while.

“Come on, you’ll ask him something  _responsible_ , won’t you?” And he  _winks_  at her, what the hell.

“If it gets the damned situation going,” she sighs. “Fine, fine. If you’re good with it?”

“Sure. I’d trust you a lot more than him anyway,” Tyrion agrees with a sigh. Brienne is a nice person. He likes her. She likes him, too, which isn’t a given half of the time.

“Fine. Truth or dare?” She sounds almost pained as she asks it.

“Dare.” Better err on the side of caution. And then - then Brienne mouths  _sorry_  at him.  _What_?

“… kiss the person that you’ve known the longest in this room and that you’re not related to.”

…  _what_. Jaime is laughing next to her without even trying, she looks mortified and -

And  _everyone else_  in here but Bronn is a friend of Jaime’s from college. He  _met_  Brienne in college. Fuck.

“You could have just said it straight, you know,” Bronn tells Brienne with entirely too much calm for the situation.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she says. “I only did this because  _he_  was very convincing.” Then she punches Jaime in the side not too delicately.

Tyrion doesn’t want to know what he promised to do in exchange.

“ _Well_ , I guess we should get on with it,” he says, standing up to his feet, and god, he’s _really_  happy that at least Jaime’s college friends are a bunch of ridiculous people who aren’t judgmental because he’s pretty sure that Cersei’s friends would have been laughing by now. Considering that in order to do the damned thing he has to stand on his feet while Bronn is still sorta kneeling on the floor.

Bronn finishes his beer and throws it somewhere in the corner. “Sure. And don’t look that sour, kissing you is miles better than spending the next hour or so naked and sitting on the roughest fucking carpet in this building.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Oberyn supplies from somewhere at Tyrion’s left. 

He groans and just moves closer, touching his lips to Bronn’s and telling himself that he’s going to  _murder_  Jaime in a few hours.

It’s a horrid kiss. Tyrion is so nervous he doesn’t even try to do anything but just stand there and press his mouth against Bronn’s, and since he’s only ever kissed Tysha in middle school before she moved it’s not like he’s ready for the stubble scratching at his chin. Also, he keeps his hands firmly to his sides and it’s just, fucking horrible. He really,  _really_  is glad that he’s surrounded by people who aren’t finding it funny.

And then he feels Bronn press just a little bit, and he parts his lips a bit on reflex, and then he thinks  _what the fuck I’m doing_  and moves back as if he’s been burned.

Bronn stares at him as if he’s completely unimpressed. “Was that because you weren’t expecting it or because you weren’t into it?”

“Wait, what, I wasn’t expecting it but -  _did you just ask what I think you just asked_?”

“For being that smart and for all those boring-ass nineteenth century romance novels you read, you can be pretty fucking dumb, Lannister.”

“ _Preach it_ ,” Jaime shouts from wherever the fuck he’s ended up - damn, is he half in Brienne’s lap or  _what_.

And then he turns back towards Bronn. “So - you actually would do that  _properly_.”

Bronn shrugs. “Though it was plenty obvious.”

“You flirt with  _everyone_!”

“Yes, and with  _whom_  did I flirt other than you in the last six months?”

He thinks about it for a moment, realizing that the answer is  _no one_.

“I wouldn’t have gone with it if I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t regret it, if it helps. And if you want to get out and sort this out, you’re excused for the next three rounds. And I think that Oberyn is also excused from being  _that_  under dressed.”

“Brienne, you’re  _no fun at all_ ,” Jaime pouts.

“Shut up,” she sighs while Oberyn thanks her and goes to grab his pants from wherever they ended up.

Bronn shakes his head, stands up and holds a hand out. “So, are we going to  _sort this out_  and possibly give it a less fucking embarrassing go at it or not?”

Tyrion is going to think about the details later. 

“Sure,” he says, and he grasps at Bronn’s hand as they head straight for the door.

No, he probably won’t murder Jaime after all.

 

End.


	63. asoiaf; tyrion/bronn/shae; modern au, 'don't trust me'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where Bronn does like the escort he paid for his best friend's birthday a lot. Good thing they all seem to like each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [thequeenrhaenyra](http://thequeenrhaenyra.tumblr.com) who wanted Tyrion/Bronn/Shae with 'don't trust me'. I totally reworked the prompt some /o\

“You  _do_  know that if someone I’m related to finds out I might end up on a street?”

“Then  _why_  are we doing this in  _my_  humble abode, Lannister?”

“You haven’t called me like that since middle school, I’m hurt.”

“ _Right_ , and if you think that your father’s going to find out what you’re doing for your twenty-fifth birthday in  _my_  house when I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even fucking know where I live, you’re at least as paranoid as he is. And even if he finds out so what? She might be some friend of mine that I invited to help me cooking or  _something_.”

“He’s paranoid enough to know you can’t cook worth a damn, Bronn.”

Bronn rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time in the last thirty minutes and doesn’t say  _watch me hire an escort next time_. Mostly because he knows it’d be unnecessarily mean. And he _knows_  why Tyrion might have hang-ups about escorts considering what happened a couple of months ago when he ended up on a tabloid after not being  _that_  careful with paying for his entertainment in that sense, but still.

“Well, you  _also_  could try to get out of the house and charm a woman yourself, it’s not like you don’t have the skills for it.”

“Right, because I’m so charming they’d fall for it.”

Bronn has to bite his tongue to avoid saying  _well if you swung the other way I wouldn’t have issues volunteering_ , because you don’t really say that kind of thing to someone you’ve known since middle school  _and_  you’re the only proper friend they have, never mind that he’s pretty sure that if there was a chance in hell he’d know. Still, Tywin Lannister’s parenting should be on some guide book on what to  _not_  do when you have kids, for fuck’s sake.

“And anyway, you said you weren’t going to do anything  _flashy_.”

“I told you that I wasn’t the person you wanted to trust the  _second_  time we talked. In  _middle school_. That’s too bad that you never quite got that.”

Tyrion rolls his eyes, stops himself from fiddling with his shirt collar and drinks another shot of whiskey - the fact that he has a high enough tolerance  _now_  that he doesn’t look or sound drunk at all when it’s the third he’s drank since Bronn told him that he actually hired the escort should be worrying.

Bronn is about to tell him again that  _really_ , there’s no way anyone’s going to find out, and then the doorbell rings.

“Well, guess we have company,” Bronn says, and goes to open the door.

And - well, there she is. It has to be her - a bit shorter than him, dark hair, slender, wearing a nice red dress and red flats, a small purse, light make-up and dark eyes - nice.  _Really_  nice. He’s almost tempted to ask if she’d be willing to spend a bit of time with him after, but it’s not _his_  birthday, and anyway he doesn’t want to steal the spotlight or anything. (Too bad that being friends with a sort of  _public figure_  means that they can’t go to bars, because Bronn would make an  _excellent_  wingman if given the chance.)

“Shae, I suppose?”

“In the flesh,” she answers with a small smile. “You’re the one that  _hired_  me, yes?”

“ _In the flesh_. Please do get in. I’ll go get some more drinks while you two get  _acquainted_.”

He glances at Tyrion as he moves away from the doorstep and lets her in - he can pinpoint the moment his throat  _might_  have gone a bit dry, but he does know Tyrion’s type,  _thank you_  very much.

Bronn runs off to the kitchen before he can dragged in the conversation. He also spends five minutes tinkering with shit around the room when he could have been in the other room way earlier than that.

When he comes back with some vodka, a couple beers and wine - never say he wasn’t born ready for this kind of occasion - he sees that at least they’re talking. Good. He opens one of the beers, takes a drink and then clears his throat.

“Well,” he says, “since it looks like you’re doing fine on your own,  _he_  knows where the bedroom is. And I might be nice enough to go take a walk if you don’t think it’s weird that I might watch some tv here.”

“If you think that’s  _weird_ for me you really have no clue of what I’ve seen in the last few years,” Shae says, sounding fairly amused. “That said, I’m pretty sure that you could stay here.  _Or_  -”

“Hey, wait, you said you wouldn’t -” Tyrion starts, sounding kind of panicked.

“I never said you should trust me to  _not_  say it. Now, you can stay here, but when we discussed terms I never said I couldn’t be with two people at once.”

For a moment, no one says a thing.

Then -

“Wait a moment,” Bronn says. “Are you implying that -”

“Considering that in the five minutes I’ve been here I’ve seen longing looks on  _both_ of your faces that could have been in a romcom, I’m implying that I  _do_ , in fact, sleep with two people at once. And since you’re both cute and you paid extra, I won’t ask for a surplus fee.”

She smiles like someone who just scored herself a nice deal while Bronn can’t help it - he goes and stares at Tyrion who probably looks as dumbfounded as  _he_  does.

“What the hell,” Bronn says first, “weren’t you, like, one hundred percent straight or _something_?”

“Weren’t  _you_?” Tyrion answers, and Shae bursts out laughing after putting her whiskey glass on top of Bronn’s coffee table.

“Sounds to me like  _neither_  of you is. So, are you coming to figure it out or are you just going to stare at each other until my three hours are up?”

That was  _not_  the plan. “… I guess I could  _not_  sit here and watch television,” Bronn finally says.

Tyrion spits his whiskey, Shae laughs again and stands up, smoothing her skirt and taking off her shoes.

“So, are you going to show me to the bedroom or what?”

However this goes, Bronn says as he finally gets a move on and heads for the door so he can avoid thinking about the situation until everyone is at least shirtless, he might try to get her private number after this is over.

He’s also plenty sure Tyrion won’t object.  _After_  Bronn has his hide for never telling him until this point.

 

End.


	64. asoiaf; jaime/brienne, post-canon, shy kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I hadn’t thought I’d do it like this,” he mutters, and she’s about to ask what but she can’t because he’s kissing her before she can, and she’s too surprised to even move - which is probably why he leans back after a couple moments of just lips against lips and looking like he’d like to drop into a hole in the ground and disappear there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [thequeenrhaenyra](http://thequeenrhaenyra.tumblr.com/) who wanted Jaime/Brienne and shy kissing for the writing kissing meme. Post-canon. Implies speculation and spoilers re the valonqar thing - if you don't know what I'm talking about you're better off skipping.

He hasn’t said a word in days.

Brienne is hardly surprised, for that matter. She’s not going to ask what went down in the throne room - she  _knows_  what went down, actually, and it was enough to grant him a sort of pardon, but she’s not going to ask for the details at any point soon. She  _had_  been meaning to ask him if she could do anything, but considering that Jaime’s brother had gone to her and told her that pardon or not she, Jaime and the former king  _really_  were better off somewhere that wasn’t King’s Landing and that she had to arrange in mere hours to find a boat that might take the three of them to Tarth, well, she’s hardly had time. Never mind that she also has a more or less traumatized ten-year old on her hands to look after.

By the time she finally resolves to find him and  _ask_ , they’ve been on the boat a few days and it’s another couple until they reach home. She hopes her father won’t have her head, though she supposes that he’ll just be relieved she’s come home more or less intact at least.

She finds Jaime looking out at the sea, his head cast down.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says after joining him there. Poor way to break the silence, but she can’t come up with anything better.

He shrugs. “She was about order someone to set the city on fire before anyone else could come,” he says, and Brienne doesn’t need to ask clarifications.

“I’m still sorry.”

He says nothing for a moment, then turns to her and - has he been crying?

“You know,” he says, “back in the Riverlands. One of the men of the brotherhood -”

“I’m sorry about that, too.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted to say. He said you only came after me when you realized someone else was going to die if you didn’t. But he said you almost got yourself hanged because you wouldn’t do it first.”

She shrugs and moves the collar of her clothes down - her skin’s not purple anymore but one can see the sign of the damn rope still.

“Why would you even do that?”

“You’re worth it,” she replies after a moment. No point in hiding it - any other answer would have been misleading and she’d dead tired of doing it. She doesn’t move as he comes closer, and then she realizes that something’s very weird. It’s night, so she hadn’t seen it until seeing him up close, but - is he  _flushing_  a bit under the beard?

Then his left hand grasps at her shoulder. His fingers are kind of shaking.

“I hadn’t thought I’d do it like this,” he mutters, and she’s about to ask  _what_  but she can’t because he’s kissing her before she can, and she’s too surprised to even move - which is probably why he leans back after a couple moments of just lips against lips and looking like he’d like to drop into a hole in the ground and disappear there.

“Well, I knew I shouldn’t have,” he says, turning to leave, but she’s grasped at his arm before he can do that.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she says, “but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have done it.”

“It… doesn’t?” He sounds so  _different_  from his usual, and she thinks about what he told her in the baths such a long time ago - considering how he’s looking at her right now, she wonders if _this_  is the way he used to be back before he stabbed a king in the back to save everyone else. It could be.

“Definitely not,” Brienne answers before actually taking the last step herself - not that it’s any better since  _she_  hasn’t ever kissed anyone either, and for a moment she feels like she’s the girl who clutched at Ronnet Connington’s rose while wanting to tear it up to pieces all over again, and she can feel herself flushing, but when his mouth opens up under hers she forgets about it.

“And that was definitely worth almost getting hanged,” she tries to joke when they move away, and he’s still flushing a bit while he snorts and tells her that she should leave the bad jokes to him.

For the first time in days she thinks that this entire situation might turn out fine, after all.

 

End.


	65. asoiaf; jaime/brienne + tyrion; post-canon, you can trust me, all the fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Wench, never mind that I’ve had enough excitement to last me a lifetime, but do youreally think surprises at weddings are a good idea these days?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon who wanted Jaime/Brienne with 'you can trust me'. This is ridiculous pre-wedding canon AU fluff, don't expect sadness.

Jaime is still trying to get his damned clothes ready when the knock on the door comes, and - _why_? Isn’t it early?

“Should I be downstairs already?”

“No, not yet.”

It’s Brienne.  _Why_  is she even here? Shouldn’t she be waiting for him to get to the damned sept?

“Wait a moment.”

He goes to open the door with his breeches half-unlaced and the cloak on his arm, not that she hasn’t seen him in worse conditions, and then he lets her in. And - well. She  _did_  put effort in her get-up, at least - blue tunic, blue breeches, all silk. It doesn’t pay her any favors, but it _does_  bring out her eyes, and he’s seen less happier brides on their wedding day in his life.

“Uhm, is there a reason why you’re  _here_?”

“Well, yes. I didn’t know until this morning, actually, but - let’s say there might be a, er, a surprise for you and you should know before -  _before_.”

For a moment, Jaime stares at her.

“Wench, never mind that I’ve had enough excitement to last me a lifetime, but do you  _really_  think surprises at  _weddings_  are a good idea these days?”

She rolls her eyes and takes a step forward, and she  _does_  blush while she laces up his breeches - he doesn’t comment on that, but considering that his left fingers are kind of shaking a bit and his other hand is  _useless_ , well, good thing she’s doing it and not the maid.

“This isn’t a bad one,” she finally says. “You can trust me on that.”

And she stares at him as she speaks, and - right.  _Fine_. With everything they’ve been through he knows he  _can_  trust her, it just takes looking at the rope scar peeking from her collar to make him remember why, and it’s been long enough that it doesn’t feel strange anymore.

Still,  _surprises_  at  _weddings_? He’d rather have a boring one. Not that there’s the chance it might be  _that_  kind of exciting wedding - they’re on Tarth, most of the people attending will be smallfolk and surely no one  _he_  knows is coming.

“Fine,” he says, “show me this  _surprise_.”

She smiles a tiny bit and turns her back to him - he follows her out of the room and through a couple of hallways, then to the above floor. Right outside her father’s solar.

“Don’t tell me that your father has decided it is a bad idea after all.”

“My father is downstairs weeping in joy, don’t you worry. So, uhm, it’s just - as stated, I didn’t know until this morning. And I sent the raven the day after you so charmingly proposed, so -”

“What wasn’t charming about my proposal?”

She chuckles and shakes her head, and only Brienne could think fondly of a proposal that went along the lines of ‘I doubt I could beat you in a swordfight these days and your father tells me you won’t consider anyone otherwise, but I might have beaten you if you had unchained me back in the day, so does that count’.

“As I said. If I had known first I’d have probably told you, but - well. Just go inside and remember I’m expecting you on time.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I get there  _before_  you?”

“The septon says that it makes no difference who gets there first.”

Her cheeks blush a bit harder as she moves forward and kisses his cheek before fleeing down the hallway.

“What in the seven hells,” he says under his breath, and then he gets inside the room. Where -

“You took your sweet time getting here,” his brother says from the chair he’s sitting on with an almost full glass of red wine in his hands, and for a moment Jaime is so flabbergasted that he just stands there and gapes without being able to say a thing.

And then Tyrion laughs before taking a drink, putting away the glass and resting his elbows on his knees.

“Well, that has to be the first time in history I see you without words.  _Interesting_.”

“Wait, what, how are you -”

“Your bride to be sent a letter to Casterly Rock a long time ago. I didn’t answer it, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and then I thought about it for a while, and well - she made a perfectly good point that I hadn’t let myself consider.”

“As in?”

“As in, that when our illustrious father forced you to lie to me you were hardly in your best frame of mind and that you had killed your not so precious king without telling anyone  _why_  not that long before. Never mind that I remember our illustrious father enough to imagine how that went. And we’re the last two left, which makes it rather useless to - to hold that kind of grudge. I suppose. Other than that, she  _was_  right in pointing out that there should be  _someone_  on your side of the family coming to the wedding. So, are you going to let me give you a hand tying that damned cloak or are you going to stand there until she thinks you changed your mind?”

“I don’t need -”

“I bet you don’t.”

Well, it’s not like he hadn’t been struggling with that before, had he. He leans down so that Tyrion can tie the damned thing - it was agreed upon that they would just swap them since it would have been fairly ridiculous for Brienne to take  _his_  cloak when he’s going to live in her island for the foreseeable future. Which means he has to wear it himself.

“Thanks,” he sighs as he stands up again. “So, uhm, thank you for coming? I just -”

“I can  _hear_  that you’re at a loss for words again. You’re welcome. Now, are you going to marry her or not?”

“Fine, and are you coming downstairs with me or you’d rather go first?”

“While I think that giving you out would be a fairly bad idea, I  _think_  I’ll go with you. And for what it’s worth, I think this might be the first good idea you’ve had in your entire life.”

“Why,  _thank you_ , I’m flattered.” He pretends to be offended but truth is, he’s everything but.

And as he walks into the sept and Tyrion moves to the side, he thinks that he has absolutely nothing to object to that notion. He also needs to show her later how much he actually appreciated the  _surprise_ , but all in good time.

A few hours from now, he will laugh after Tyrion drags him into a corner and tells him that he’d have never put money on  _his_  wedding being the first in years during which nothing horrible had happened, and he will be glad that they both are here to reminisce about it.

Right this moment, he walks up to the sept and as Brienne walks in with her father looking like someone who has just now realized that she  _really_  might be doing this, he thinks that he really can’t wait to wear her cloak.

 

End.


	66. asoiaf; jaime/brienne; post-adwd canon speculation, 'shit, are you bleeding?'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Jaime Lannister, I didn’t almost let them hang me so I wouldn’t have to kill you just to see you die of a minor wound, the Others -”_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _And then she stops talking the moment he stops looking amused and stares straight up at her the same way he had stared at her in that tub in Harrenhaal months ago._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for an anon who wanted Jaime/Brienne and 'shit, are you bleeding?'. Contains post-adwd speculation so if you haven't read up to Jaime's chapter you might wanna skip this.

She should have noticed.

She  _should_  have. Fine, all things considered, it’s probably human that she doesn’t pay attention to his irregular breathing until they’re far from the brotherhood’s camp. And considering that she’s also worried about Pod and Hyle - they took the other horse and ran the other way, and she  _really_  hopes they had the same luck they had -, and that she had rode the horse to exhaustion and that she was worried trying not to get them killed, it’s… not surprising that she realizes that something’s wrong the moment she feels something warm and sticky on her back, pouring through  _her clothes_.

Considering that he’s sitting behind her and holding on to her back -

“Shit,  _are you bleeding_?”

“Wench, I didn’t know you finally succumbed to the joys of swearing like all of us do,” he croaks, and considering how he’s sounding -

“Oh, you  _are_ , aren’t you?”

She stops the horse for good, it’s not like it would have gone much farther carrying two of them after the ride she put her through, and she tries not to get down too quickly lest she makes it worse - she helps him down and yes, he’s hunching all over and  _someone stabbed him in the side_. And it’s bleeding.  _Profusely_  bleeding.

“You could have  _said_  something, you know?” Brienne’s aware that she might be sounding this side of hysterical as she helps him sit down against the next tree over - then again, it’s not like she has any bandages with her, or anything that could be useful. Neither has he.

“Right, and slowed us down when we have at least half of those bandits chasing after us?” He’s obviously trying to make fun of the situation, but considering how pale he is, she isn’t seeing the fun in it at all.

“Take off that shirt,” she says instead.

“Seems like you have your priorities sorted, huh?”

She’s about to scream at him to just do it, but he moves forward and manages to shed the shirt he was wearing under the cloak, and  _couldn’t he have worn armor damn it_ , and while the weather is hardly ideal for being shirtless, she’ll think about that later. She rips the clean part of it away from the side already stained with blood, then she rips it again in two, folds it and presses it over the wound - now that she looks at it, it’s  _not_  as bad as she had thought, it’s just bleeding out a lot. So maybe if she can stop it and then wrap it up it might hold until they find an inn or she finds supplies. At least it doesn’t look life threatening.

Still, considering that she has Lady Stoneheart’s blood under her nails, she doesn’t like this situation at all, and she shouldn’t even be  _thinking_  about what she did because if she does she’s not going to keep her wits to herself.

“Wench, that’s hardly fatal.”

“You look like you’re about to faint nonetheless so pardon me if I don’t think you should bleed out all over the ground.”

“I survived this,” he says, raising up his right arm and completely failing to wave with his gold hand. “I think I can survive a minor -”

“Jaime Lannister, I didn’t almost let them hang me so I wouldn’t have to  _kill you_  just to see you  _die of a minor wound_ , the Others -”

And then she stops talking the moment he stops looking amused and stares straight up at her the same way he had stared at her in that tub in Harrenhaal months ago.

Damn it. She had sworn to herself she wouldn’t tell him and it’s not even been three days and what has she just done?

“Don’t say it,” she says, pressing down harder.

“Did you just say -”

“I said  _don’t_.”

“ _Brienne_ , did you just say that the charming bruise on your neck is there because of -”

“ _Don’t_ , all right? You don’t have to say anything, actually you  _shouldn’t_  say anything until you stop bleeding out.”

“I don’t know, considering everything that just happened  _maybe_  we should talk about it.”

“Not  _now_.”

“Seems to me there’s no time like the present, since you can’t avoid the conversation unless you want me to  _bleed out all over the ground_.”

“ _Fine_ , yes, I said that, you heard right, can you stop talking about it?”

“I don’t know, if someone almost dies because of me -”

“Can’t you just let it go?”

“And why are you assuming I’d have a laugh about that?”

And at that she doesn’t know what to say -  _because everyone else would have_  is the truth, but not all of it.  _Because I already know how this ends and I’d rather not go through it with you_  would be fairly more truthful, but it’s hardly the right occasion to bring it up. Never mind that she didn’t want to bring it up in the first place.

So she says nothing and looks down at her fingers stained in blood pressing on that equally blood-stained cloth.

For a moment, he says nothing and she hopes he just let it go.

“So I can’t even say thank you?”

“Why should you thank me? I brought you into that trap.”

“You also brought me  _out_  of it. And it seemed to me like you had some sort of plan all along, or was I wrong?”

“No, but -”

“So, can I say it?”

“If it gets you to shut up,  _yes_.”

“Fine. That sounds acceptable. I need you to look up, though.”

She does, if only to just get this over with.

And then he groans, raises up his left hand, hisses in pain as he puts it on the back of her neck and  _kisses the corner of her mouth_ and -

He leans back, and he’s  _grinning_  even if he’s still too pale for her tastes, and she doesn’t even know what she should say, because  _what was that_  -

“By the way,” he says, “if you think that it was a joke - it wasn’t. And you’re blushing, so don’t try to say that you didn’t want me to do that.”

Maybe it’s the exhaustion, maybe it’s the  _elation_ , maybe it’s that she can’t think straight anymore and she’s dead tired and he’s still not done bleeding, but she hadn’t meant to answer, “Maybe I wanted  _more_  than that,” as she resolutely doesn’t look up at him.

She has to when she feels the shaking fingers of his left hand touch her chin. “And who told you I wouldn’t be amenable the moment I can move properly? Because I  _would_  be.”

Brienne is  _not_  going to think about how it’s plain obvious that he means it. Because that would make her falter in what she’s doing and she needs that wound to stop bleeding out before she even considers what to do.

But as his left hand moves away from her face and covers both of hers, she can’t help smiling a bit for the first time since long before she was brought in front of Lady Stoneheart for the first time.

 

End.


End file.
